


Kiss of Death

by moegan



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7103491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moegan/pseuds/moegan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight months after Steve broke everyone out of the submerged prison, a Hydra base long-forgotten in Wakanda is triggered and there is an escapee enhanced person. After capturing her and returning to the king's quarters, they find that she is more intimately entwined with the group than anyone could have ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**GERMANY.**

“Steve?”

Footsteps still, “Which Bucky am I talking to?”

A slow chuckle falls from dark lips, shrouded with stubble from days past, “Your mom’s name was Sara, and you used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

The blonde can’t help the smile that cracks onto his lips, dried from the snowfall outside. From about ten feet away, Wilson rolls his eyes, tossing his hands up in the air, “Oh, so just like that we’re supposed to be cool?”

Steve cuts Sam a glare, blue eyes shining even in the darkness of the place they’re staying.

“What did I do this time?” a regretful tone overtakes Bucky’s voice.

“Enough.”

 _That_ was eight months ago.

 _That_ was before the Avengers fell apart to fall back together.

 _That_ was before Tony Stark found out that Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, had killed his parents because someone in Russia, working for HYDRA told him to.

 _That_ was before Tony cried out that Steve didn’t deserve that shield, that his _father_ made it for him. He was unworthy, unfit to behold such a trademark that meant honor and sacrifice when Tony saw nothing but selfishness in Steve’s complexion.

 _That_ was before Cap went rogue.

And now?

Now Tony really wants to pick up that phone.

**NEW YORK.**

It’s been laying on his desk for a while now, and he wonders if maybe he could track it back to Cap, but he never does. Even though there is hatred coursing through his veins, he doesn’t really want to catch Cap and lock him in an underwater box.

He just wants to loathe him from afar.

After all, how could the man with perfect integrity keep such a secret? Tony didn’t even think that Steve was capable of such a thing.

“Are you going to cry?” the brash voice comes from the entryway.

Tony is shaken, his focus diverted, “Wh-wh…No, I don’t _cry_ , Romanoff. I sweat from my eyes, is all.”

He didn’t even realize the wetness gathering in his eyelids.

“Why don’t you just call him?” Natasha suggests, leaning her hip against his table. She doesn’t look anywhere but his face meanwhile Tony can’t do much more than look out the window.

Tony settles deeper into his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, images of the last time he saw Captain America running through his head, just how different things were.

“I don’t want to.”

Nat snorts, “Oh yeah, because that is definitely the mature response.”

“I’m Iron Man,” Tony’s haughty voice returns, and this time he glares Natasha dead in the face. “I don’t have to be mature.”

She rolls her eyes, remembering when she accused him of not being able to put aside his ego. Things are a touch different now, but it’s still the same principle. He’s so caught up in himself and his self-preservation that he can’t focus on the bigger picture.

“I guess you don’t,” she nods, licking her lips. “But you could afford to feel a little something other than pride and ingenuousness every once and a while.

Tony shrugs but it feels as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders, “I’m just trying to keep us together, Romanoff.”

Auburn eyebrows raise, “Trying to keep _us_ together, Tony? That’s the worst deflective comment I’ve heard from you in a while.”

Moments of silence pass and Tony would usually make a comment about how Agent Romanoff should shut her mouth before he does something stupid, but he can’t seem to force it out.

“I know,” he concedes, his head dropping. “I’m just tired is all.”

Nat cocks her head to the side in questioning. Tony smirks up at her, “You guys don’t necessarily make this whole team captain thing easy on me, you know. It’s like herding cats with you guys, trying to get you to all work together.”

“Who made you team captain? Was there a vote I didn’t know about?” her biting tone cuts Tony down, reminding him that he was never really in charge.

He grits his teeth and his eyelashes shade his miserable brown irises that would tell too many things he’d rather keep a secret. Tony huffs to cover it up, “Yeah, Banner was there. Can’t believe you missed it.”

Natasha licks her lips, full well knowing what Tony is doing.

She chuckles in a bitter way, shaking her head as she stares at him in disbelief, “You know, if all of your defense mechanisms turn to sarcasm, you’re going to dig yourself into a hole with the wrong person who isn’t going hesitate burying you.”

“I’ll get out,” he sits up straight, voice serious, “I always do.”

_I always have._

Tony tries to shake the thoughts clouding him, keeping him down like he’s been run over by a semi. He swallows thickly and veils his true emotions like he always does, his brown eyes glancing up at Natasha as she comes closer to him.

_December 16 th, 1991. _

_I remember that road._

_I know that arm._

_I know that man._

_I trusted that man._

_I hate that man._

“There’s a lot going on here,” she reminds him. “Like it or not, Steve has a lot going on too. I know what happened was awful, and terrible, and I’m not taking away from that at all. I just want you to look at Steve’s side of things. He feels like he _let_ James die, as if it were his fault. And now he just feels responsible for him, on top of the fact that he loves him. James means more to Steve than I think any of us could mean.”

Tony’s blood boils at the name of James Buchanan Barnes.

“I know,” he turns, “but he killed my mom.”

**WAKANDA.**

“I’m glad you decided against the whole re-freezing thing,” Steve says, resisting the urge to clap his best friend on the back, afraid to bring back memories and trigger an episode. “It’s nice not having to deal with T’Challa all on my own.”

Bucky smiles, his teeth showing this time, “Well, glad I could save you some suffering.”

“Hey,” Sam calls from the couch, “at least you didn’t refer to him as a cat. Because, apparently, people get offended at stuff like that. So yeah.”

It’s true, the Wakandan king hasn’t given Sam a break, reminding him that he has fake wings just as much as T’Challa has fake claws.

“So, sparring?” Wanda appears from the doorway, floating about six inches off the ground.

Steve can’t help but laugh as he downs the rest of his coffee, “It’s a little late for all that, don’t you think Wanda?”

She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest, red mist gently curling around her body as a smirk takes over her lips, “I was thinking we might do something real this time.”

A blonde brow quirks up, “How do you mean?”

Wanda nods at the door towards the outside world, where they rarely go unless absolutely necessary.

“No,” the decision is immediate.

She sighs and stomps her foot, playing up the whole childish act, “C’mon, Captain! I’m so tired of being cooped up in here. _You_ got to go out, _Sam_ got to go out! I know Panther gets to go out.” Suddenly her eyes begin to have a low red hue to them, “Don’t tell me that you’re locking me in my room.”

Steve shakes his head, sighing as he puts his cup in the sink and runs water over it, “I’m not, Wanda. I just don’t want anything bad to happen. I don’t want us to be compromised.”

“That’s what Visi—“

“ _But_ ,” Steve interrupts, holding out a palm, “I understand what you mean and where you’re coming from. I’m sorry for making you feel like a prisoner.”

Wanda’s mouth closes instantly and her eyes widen, eyebrow raising.

Bucky and Sam look over at him, narrowing their own eyelids to make sure that they’re hearing Steve correctly. He nods again, running a hand through his light hair, “Look, we can’t stay cooped up in here forever. I’m sorry I did that to you, Wanda.”

He looks pointedly at the young girl, apologies flowing easily in his blue eyes, “I didn’t even realize what I was doing, and I don’t like it now that I see it. Things are kind of different than they were after the Accords, but it doesn’t mean I should lock you in here. You can handle yourself, and I’m sorry for making you think that I had a different opinion.”

She swallows, nodding at him in an appreciative way, and Captain continues, “We have to get out. I know Buck and I are still catching up in twenty-first century important events, but there’s only so many documentaries we can watch.”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky sighs, “Steve, are we talking about us _all_ going out?”

A shrug shakes Cap’s shoulders, “I don’t see why not.”

“Other than the _obvious_ reason?” Bucky quips, raising his eyebrows.

Steve nods, “You don’t have to go, if you’re concerned with what might happen. I’m okay with that. You’re safe here, T’Challa is on the upper deck entertaining some guests. They should be here all night.”

Steve hates to leave Buck alone, but sometimes it’s necessary.

“Hey,” Bucky can obviously see the worry billowing around in Steve’s eyes, “I’ll be okay. I wanted to watch that one movie anyways, and I’m hungry. I’ll go eat.”

“Okay,” his friend nods, “okay, all right. But if anything, use your beeper, okay?”

Bucky gives him a crooked smile, leaning his torso back as he watches Wanda float just a little bit higher in excitement. He looks back to Steve, “It’s on my belt, I’ll use it if I think you guys need to come back or something. Promise.”

With one final nod of the head, Steve walks towards the others, “Suit up.”

**OUTSKIRTS OF WAKANDA.**

“What did you expect us to do?”

“Something a little more exciting than this!”

“Well, we can’t exactly draw attention to ourselves.”

“So, we are tracking a pig?”

Sam can’t help the snort that escapes, and Cap glares at him from where he’s hidden behind a rock. Wanda is leaning up against a tree trunk, wondering how exactly Captain thought that this was an exciting idea.

“Look, I know you’re old,” she continues, looking at him from her position, “but isn’t this a bit…how do you say: _lame_?”

It’s dark outside, a blanket of black concealing them even if this isn’t a real mission. The darkness brings comfort, like a void they continue to throw themselves into. There aren’t many stars out, Steve misses the Brooklyn smog. It’s cool, winter soon to be arriving even in the African country of Wakanda.

Steve groans, his eyes squeezing shut as he leans his head back in frustration, “I’m just trying to keep everybody safe! Don’t you—“

Wanda looks up in fear as a metal creaking sound interrupts Cap’s paternal rant, making them all creep back into their hidden spots. Sam turns on his cloaking device and deploys little Red Wing, trying to get a closer look that Cap and Wanda can’t.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, moving away from where she was resting her hand against a specific spot on the tree trunk. “I think I triggered it.”

“Sam, what are we looking at?” Steve murmurs into the mic, fearful of being spotted if he moves too far out to look. Suddenly there’s a chill in the air not caused by a drop in temperature.

Static comes and then, “It’s a door opening up out of the ground. You’re not gonna believe what’s on the inside of it.”

A puff of air comes from Steve’s lips, clouding around him, “What, Sam?”

“Come look for yourself.”

Steve’s adrenaline is gone now, his entire body frozen, his teeth grinding together as he emerges from where he was stood behind the boulder. “Is it safe?”

Sam swallows, “Yeah, Cap. No one in sight. I’m gonna send Red Wing down first.”

And so he does, sending the little mechanical device down into the cave-like structure. Cap looks over the grimy metal door, seeing something red hidden behind the moss-covered entrance. Reaching up, his hands are barely trembling, and he wipes away the green substance.

The oh-so familiar red symbol of a red skull surrounded by tentacles haunts Steve in his nightmares but now it is printed before his eyes and his blood runs cold.

“Hydra,” he whispers, smearing the disgusting leftovers onto the pant legs of his suit. “I thought Wakanda was safe from them?”

“No one is safe from Hydra,” Wanda mumbles in bitter sarcasm as she approaches Cap at the mouth of the cave. “We’re going in, right?”

“Of course we’re going in,” Sam nods, undoing his cloaking so his body is visible from up in a tree. “What kind of recon would this be if we didn’t go in? You wanted adventure, didn’t you?”

Steve stands back, his eye flashing to Wanda. He promised himself he’d keep her safe. He swore he wouldn’t endanger anyone, not anymore. This isn’t just about his personal vendetta to keep Bucky safe anymore. Now it is about keeping everyone from harm.

“I don’t know, guys,” he answers, taking two steps backward from the entrance. “I’m not sure we should…”

Sam approaches his friend, his recruiter, and puts his hand on Cap’s shoulder, “Listen, Steve, I know what you’re thinking. But, we can take care of ourselves. You’re not responsible. Let’s go, we need to find out what’s going on.”

Taking a deep breath, Steve nods after a moment of self-conflict. He bites his lip, “Okay. Alright. But at the first sign of trouble, we’re not going to engage. We leave. I’m not having us discovered because we haven’t gotten to break heads for the past few months.”

Wanda smirks, walking down the stairs without further prodding from either of the men, “Sounds good to me, Captain.”

Falcon sends Red Wing ahead, but the stench hits them before anything else. Steve’s nose wrinkles as he tries to understand what’s going on. There’s dents in the walls, the _concrete_ walls, and blood is everywhere. It coats the walls, but not as if the guards were shot. It is more sporadic than that.

“It’s fresh,” Sam mumbles as he swipes his index finger across one of the walls. “This didn’t happen in the forties, Cap.”

If it were possible for Steve to become even more uneasy, it happens. Goosebumps rise underneath the thick material of his suit, and the metallic whirring of his shield doubles in volume. The flickering of the lights in this underground base add to the eerie quality of everything, and if Steve were to admit it, he shudders.

“Let’s see what happened,” he says slowly, creeping with his shield in front of his body.

Everywhere they go, there is blood. It doesn’t seem that any guard or personnel was left alive. Down every corridor there are bodies, not mutilated, but dead all the same. The trio walks through an open set of double doors to find a room with a long table in the middle, apparatuses all around.

“What were they up to?” Steve mumbles, looking upwards.

He’s thrown back years ago when he went to rescue Bucky from Hydra, finding his best friend laying on a table mumbling his own name. Steve’s fingertips run along the seaming of the pad on top of the table, imagining someone else’s body here to try and fight the pain that comes with remembering that he wasn’t able to protect Buck.

“Experimenting on something,” Wanda concludes as she looks through the computers. As she clacks on the keys, little tendrils of red mist escaping from under her nails, her fingertips are touching blood. “Not the same way as with Soldier, but similar. There are tests and I can sense the same cryogenic process.”

A shadow moves in the distance and Wanda’s head snaps up, “We are not alone.”

It is so quiet in the base that they can hear the birds chirping outside, the owls crooning and relocating. Even so, Steve swears he hears a groaning from a very _human_ mouth.

“Shh,” he motions to the hallway and together they walk.

One of the bodies makes the slightest of movements, and Steve rushes over to feel for a pulse. There is the faintest of thumps against his neck and so Steve rolls him over. The man’s eyes shoot wide open and there is a traumatic dent in his head, blood trickling from his nose.

“Witch,” he murmurs, blue eyes almost swallowed by his pupils. A foul stench fills the room and then the man’s head goes limp in Cap’s hands.

Everyone is still and quiet, not sure what to do. None of the other bodies seem to be moving, all suffering from significant head wounds or blood loss. Justification comes in the comfort that they were all Hydra agents or doctors, doing something _very_ wrong, very evil.

“Let’s move,” Steve pushes them along, passing by more bodies and more blood.

Sam pulls Red Wing back into his pack and walks forward, “I don’t know about you two, but I’m a little freaked out.”

“Everybody is dead, Sam,” Wanda mentions as they step over yet another body. “I think we’re all nervous.”

They walk down another hallway and it is to Steve’s surprise that the door has been opened, but the physical _doors_ are on the ground outside in the grass. He nudges one with his foot and then looks up as he sees a shadow moving through a tree.

_You need to leave._

Steve clutches his hair, falling to his knees at the intensity of the pain shooting through his head.

“Steve?!” Sam presses his hand to his friend’s back and Wanda takes up a battle stance. “Hey, what happened?”

He shakes his head and looks up towards the origin of the voice as it speaks again: _I’m dangerous. Leave. Please._

“Who are you?” Steve rasps, his throat burning. He looks around for the shadow, but it is nowhere to be found now. Wanda raises blood stained hands as she closes her eyes. The red encompasses her body as her feet raise her up off the ground, “I will find you, witch.”

_I’m sorry Steve._

Wondering if maybe she can hear his thoughts as well, he focuses on trying to pinpoint her and then he thinks: _How do you know my name?_

A smirk can be _felt_ , Steve thinks. He can feel the confidence this person exudes in their tone as they respond: _I know all about you, Cap._

“Who are you?!” Wanda’s voice is strong, her hands held in the air as she goes about seeking out the other presence. Sam messes with the buttons on his arm, Cap didn’t even know he’d deployed Red Wing, and he mumbles, “Got you.”

An electrical charge shoos out from the small contraption and a sharp cry can be heard from fifty foot deep into the forest. Sam is desperate, “Wanda!”

She narrows her eyes and focuses on the voice, maneuvering her hands to capture the body in her coil of red mist. A woman is risen from the forest, hidden in the branches of a tree fifty feet in the air.

Steve is frozen as he looks at her – dark hair pulled into a high ponytail, sweaty strands framing her face. Her cheeks are flushed, chest heaving as she struggles against Wanda’s hold. She’s tall and there’s a brightness in her eyes that screams anger. As he looks closer, Steve notices that her skin is actually _glowing_.

Wanda repeats herself, much harsher this time, her hands constricting and making the grip on the woman sharper.  She winces and Steve connects their eyes and he sees nothing but apologies running through them.

When she raises her hands in the air is when Steve sees the blood. It coats her fingers and is in splatters against her jacket, tainting her skin red. Her lips tremble and there is a tear track running down her right cheek.

Her voice echoes in his mind: _I’m sorry, Steve._

The slightest movement of her fingertips and a crackle of lightning strikes a tree near where Wanda is standing, sending the young woman flying. The red mist that was entangling the mystery female fades away as Wanda tries to recover, but it doesn’t matter. She’s free.

The woman turns her head slightly to look at Wanda and Steve only gets to see a glimpse of the fear in her eyes. It doesn’t matter, though, because he can sense it radiating off of her. Another small strike of lightning disintegrates Red Wing in midflight and Sam curses from where he’s standing on the ground. She licks her lips and goes to speak, but her hands move in a way that tells Steve it isn’t of her own doing and suddenly Steve’s feet are encased in ice.

“No,” he hears her mumble, “no, no, no.”

Steve can’t feel his toes, but it doesn’t matter because he just wants to reach out. He’s trying to think but there are so many things happening and he can’t get through to her.

Swallowing, the girl goes to speak again but before she can, her skin starts glowing brighter as she raises herself up off the ground, her feet lapping with flames. She looks Steve directly in his eyes and it isn’t the ice at his feet that makes him freeze.

“Please.”

It is audible this time, she isn’t thinking herself into his head. It hurts worse to hear her voice come from her flesh instead of her thoughts, he thinks. Steve isn’t sure how he understands, but he knows she’s out of control, fighting some internal battle that she knows she can’t win right now.

Steve nods, “Okay.”

A wind begins picking up and the leaves on the trees rattle, sending more noise into Steve’s thoughts. Wanda stirs from her momentary knock out with fear blinding her. She looks to Captain, wondering what they’re going to do with this enhanced person who can break her hold.

The woman closes her eyes and rain begins to make noise against Captain’s shield, but its freezing cold rain. He is starting to not be able to feel his toes, so he knows he has to act quickly. Before Wanda can try to capture her again, Steve holds up a hand. He readies his shield to block anything that comes back at him but deposits a grenade from his belt into his hand.

“Can you make a force field around her?” he asks, ready to pull the pin. Sam goes to say something but Cap repeats himself, yelling this time. It hurts his heart to do this to someone whom he believes is innocent, but he knows it’s necessary. She’s beginning to create a storm.

 “Yes!” Wanda shouts back, holding her hands up as the wind increases in speed, her brown hair whipping around her. “Then trap this when I throw it!” Captain yells, pulling the pin. He tosses it towards the girl and screams, “Now!”

Immediately after the explosion hits, Wanda contains it by creating a sphere around the unknown person who they seem to be protecting now. The smoke laced with sleeping drugs fills the inside of the force field and Steve watches as the woman breathes it in, welcoming it almost. Her eyelids fall heavy and her neck slumps, hands limp at her sides.

Almost instantaneously, the rain stops and the clouds clear. Steve begins chattering, the adrenaline gone and the numbness in his feet more apparent now. He slams his shield into the space between his feet to break the ice and then looks to Sam, who is raising one eyebrow in accusation.

“What?”

Sam rolls his eyes, “We came to chase a pig and now you want to bring this home to T’Challa?”

Steve contemplates for a minute as Wanda brings them closer to the men, “Yeah, that’s it.”

Huffing, Sam mumbles under his breath about how he didn’t sign up for this, but Steve just wriggles his toes in his soggy boots and starts marching forward.

**PANTHER CAVE. WAKANDA.**

Steve has her cradled in his arms and for the first time he takes a real _look_ at her.

She appears to be in her early twenties, not terribly younger than Steve himself. There are cuts on her face, but it doesn’t look like the blood on her hands is her own. She’s been out cold and he felt bad for her in suspension so he told Wanda to let her down.

Of course Sam looked at him like he’d lost his mind, but Steve hated to see the girl suffering.

They started down the secret entrance to the cave, a patch of dirt that morphed into earthen stairs when a few careful steps were taken. Wanda was in front of him, Sam behind him.

Looking at her now, he still feels the familiar tug of his heart telling him that there’s more to her than just what they’re seeing. Although, he knows she’s dangerous. On the same level as Wanda, it seems, if not more. So why did it seem like she wasn’t in control?

“Ah, Captain,” the Wakandan voice comes from around the bend. “I see you’ve brought home a souvenir.”

“A witch,” Sam huffs.

T’Challa raises a brow, but falls into step beside Steve, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, his voice low. “We were just out, and then this big metal door opened with the Hydra symbol on it and we went in and looked around. There was a testing room, everyone was dead.”

“She took out Red Wing,” Sam’s bitter voice resonates from behind him.

“She’s enhanced,” Steve mentions as they go towards the elevator that takes them down. “She froze something and then her feet started to catch fire. Her body was glowing and that was when we ended things.”

“She _told_ us to end things,” Sam chirps.

“What?” T’Challa turns to look Cap in his eyes.

Steve nods, “She was asking me to do something. I don’t know how I knew what exactly to do or what, but she was fighting something. I-I don’t understand.”

The dark-skinned man sighs, “Captain, I have extended a hand to you. Do not make me regret it.”

Steve dips his head in acknowledgement and as the elevator makes a noise, the girl in his arms stirs.

Sam tenses immediately, but Steve is at ease.

 _I’m not going to hurt you,_ he hears. He shakes his head and takes a step forward.

“How’d it go?” Bucky asks from the couch where a documentary about JFK is playing. He rubs at his face, “Bacon for dinner?”

A ringing sound echoes in Steve’s head and he wants to cry out, but he doesn’t. He grits his teeth and shakes his head. Before he can mention anything, Sam huffs, “Steve just _had_ to bring home a stray.”

“I’m not an animal,” her gravelly voice speaks from Steve’s arms.

Sam curses under his breath and shakes his head, but Bucky turns his head to the side just a bit. “What?”

 _You can put me down now,_ Steve hears her again.

He does as told, gently placing her down feet first. She’s wobbly at first, still overtaken by the sleeping gas and the effects of her attack.

Now, Bucky is standing up across the room, twenty feet separating them. His eyebrows are knitted together and it looks to Steve like he’s trying to put memories together. The crease in his forehead is there, like how it always is when he’s thinking, pulling things from the recesses of his mind.

Realization dawns on the stubbled face of the Winter Soldier, and his voice is a whisper when he speaks.

“Anna?”

A small smirk teases at the corners of her lips, “Hey, Buck.”


	2. два

**NEW YORK.**

“What’re you doing, Mr. Stark?”

Instantly all of the computer screens black out, every window closing. He turns, looking at Peter as the young teenager stands with his mask in hands at the front door to the lab.

“Nothing, Underoos,” Tony nods his head, tipping his glasses over the bridge of his nose, “Why? What’s up?”

Peter swallows and blinks hard, trying to forget what he just saw, and puts Mr. Stark’s coffee down on the tabletop, “Just bringing you this.” He smiles shakily, still in the I-want-to-impress-everybody stage, and then turns to walk out of the room.

Tony picks up the cup and brings it to his lips just in time for Peter to turn around, half of his body hidden by the other side of the doorway, “Also, Miss Widow wants to see you.”

Rolling his eyes, Tony flips his sunglasses down to cover his face, “Tell her that it can wait.”

“She said you’d say that.”

He huffs and leans forward, pushing his rolling-chair backwards, “What else did she say, kid?”

“Something about hydration?” Peter marvels, tipping his head to the side in innocence.

Tony’s ears are perked, his attention grasped. The coffee turns sour in his mouth, “What was that?”

Peter sighs, scratching the side of his face, “Miss Widow said something about hydration? I dunno, really, I just heard hydration and she told me to get you quickly. And that you weren’t allowed to say no, but I wasn’t allowed to say a certain name.”

Blue eyes narrow in speculation, Peter confused but trying to catch on, “This isn’t about like, Voldemort, is it?”

The elder’s jaw is clenched as he stands, grabbing the small black flip-phone off of his desk, pushing on Peter’s lower back, “No, Underoos. It’s much worse.”

**NEW YORK.**

“You wanted me?”

“For once,” Natasha quips, turning from where she was sitting in front of a multitude of computers.

Tony stands by her side and looks as a map on the screen has a bright red circle flashing on it. Conveniently, in Africa. He looks down at her, “Tell me.”

She pouts in a mocking way, “Oh, don’t be nice about it or anything.”

His eyes turn to slits and Natasha shrugs, “Okay, okay. Don’t get your panties in a twist, Stark. An old Hydra base in Wakanda was busted up three days ago. We didn’t get any footage, but there was a phone call placed that Vision was able to tap into.”

“Play it,” Tony demands with white knuckles against the countertop.

Natasha clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “Patience, Padawan.”

She taps a key on the board and a voice memo pops up, frantic breathing on the other line.

“We aren’t sure how she got out, but she did. Assassin X has already killed the two guards as well as all of the security men. We are the last left, ten doctors. We are hiding in the la— _Oh no_. No! Here she…Witch! No, ple-please! H-Help! Help! She’s cra—“

The audio cuts out and Tony feels his body still. “Assassin X?”

Natasha shakes her head, “I’ve never heard of her.”

Tony’s entire being renders in shock, “Wh-What?” He covers his hand over his heart in mock disbelief, eyes wide as he glances at Natasha.

“I know,” her voice sounds like she’s disappointed in herself. The hair falling in her face only adds to the sullen expression she’s wearing. “I don’t understand how Hydra kept her from me.”

“Someone is more secretive than the Almighty Romanoff,” Tony quips, clacking away at the keyboard. “FRIDAY, find any footage you can of the Hydra base. I want to see this girl.”

A mechanical whirring fills the room as the AI goes about her orders, but a strange deflating noise comes moments later, “Mr. Stark, there were no cameras at that base. At least none that are still in working condition.”

He sighs, feeling defeated, but manages the annoyance to ask another question: “Pull up anything that you have about Hydra being based in Wakanda.”

Images start flying across the screen, but one man in particular sticks out to Tony. He snatches the photograph from midair, bringing it closer to himself and super sizing it with a flick of his fingers.

“ _Zola_.”

“The biochemist who helped Red Skull,” Natasha supplies. “He was at that base?”

Tony nods, looking at the time stamp, “Yeah, seventy years ago.”

“What was he doing, FRIDAY?” Natasha asks, wheeling the chair backwards so she can look at the information better. She bites down on her lower lip, twirling in the chair as the AI throws up all the data on Arnim Zola.

“Here’s what I have, Miss Natasha.”

**NEW YORK.**

“Mr. Stark?”

“Not now, kid.”

“But—“

“I said _not now_.”

“So now you don’t have time for me?” a new voice chimes in.

Tony’s head is instantly turned upwards, eyeing the redhead as she walks in the room. God, he’s missed her. It’s been a year now, almost, and there was a spot in his chest that ached continuously. Now, the pain has ebbed. Or flared, Tony isn’t really sure.

“I always have time for my CEO,” Tony nods, smiling in that way that really means he’s in emotional conflict. “But, I have to ask, what are you doing in our super-secret hideout?”

Pepper laughs that lighthearted, I-know-more-than-you-think laugh, and laces her fingers together in front of her body, “I have some… _concerns_ about a certain African country.”

A raised dark eyebrow is followed by a slow voice, “Does said _certain African country_ start with a W?”

She smiles, her thin lips curling at the corners in a way that always had Tony’s heart in his throat, “It might. You know, you’d make a great Wheel of Fortune player. Very insightful.”

Natasha finds this her time to slip out the back door, her phone in her hands. Encrypted text messages fill her inbox, but one that hasn’t been read yet taps her attention. She clicks it open, reading through the coding.

_Everything is okay._

“Clint,” she manages, a small smile taking over her face. Nat slips the phone back into her pocket as she walks towards the garage where a black sports car comes rolling in.

“Ah, Miss Romanoff,” the slow, smooth voice comes from the passengers door. “So nice to see you again.”

Natasha nods in his direction, thankful he’s in a three piece suit instead of the one piece she’s used to seeing, “Your Highness.”

T’Challa exits the vehicle, motioning for his driver to make a circle around the building to find the parking deck. Natasha squeezes his arm and smiles, “Thank you.”

He shrugs, “It is not a problem. I am here to talk to Mr. Stark about the disturbance in my country. Is he busy?”

With a grin, Natasha shakes her head, “He’s currently entertaining a visitor, but I doubt he will say no when he sees you.” T’Challa smirks in the slightest, his confident dark eyes set on the doorway, “Well, let’s be off then.”

They arrive in Tony’s office to see him sitting down alone in the large chair, analyzing all the information FRIDAY had delivered about Arnim Zola. There are photographs and doctor’s reports, hundreds of documents to comb through. Peter is sat in a chair in the corner, drinking the rest of Tony’s coffee that was long forgotten after his first visitor, his eyes stuck to some electronic device.

“Mr. Stark?” T’Challa’s strong voice echoes from the entrance of the room.

Tony looks up, unsurprised to see the new face, “Hey there, Highness. Here to talk about the bad guys?”

T’Challa nods, crossing his arms in front of his navy suit, appearing much larger now. And, Tony thinks, much more menacing. “I have sent out a search party and there is nothing that remains. It is all blood and bodies, Mr. Stark. This evening, after my flight, I will be personally accompanying a panel of computer engineers from my home and we will go to see if there is anything we can pick up off of the computers left there.”

“Computers?” Tony’s voice is laced with confusion. “FRIDAY said there was nothing to be picked up from there, so computers are not going to be of any help.”

“And how does this artificial intelligence know that it has picked up all traces of whatever evidence we may need?” the king’s tone is indignant, almost haughty – something Tony can’t allow to go unnoticed.

“ _She_ was created by _me_ , and therefore is the smartest program, like, ever,” Tony answers, standing from his chair and swiping downwards on the floating screens to put them away for now. “FRIDAY is anywhere and everywhere that I ask her to be, and if she couldn’t find a power source, a video camera feed, a laptop, anything—there isn’t one.”

Dark eyebrows raise as a deeper smirk resembling a smile takes over the king’s face, “Ah, okay Mr. Stark. I believe you.” He turns, ready to walk to the door with Natasha at his side, “I will send the search party anyways.”

Nat opens the door and T’Challa leans back so his head is still visible, “And I _personally_ will make sure that there is nothing left undiscovered.”

Voice caught in his throat thanks to utter disbelief of the king’s words, Tony manages to push out the response of, “Thank you, Your Highness, it’s appreciated that you’re so eager. I will be waiting for your report, or lack thereof.”

With that, T’Challa walks from the room, confidence almost in the form of arrogance rolling off of his body in waves. Natasha snorts, “We need more women on the team, get a bit more estrogen pumping through here.”

T’Challa shakes his head, “There are not enough women who can tame a man to become less proud. He must figure that for himself.”

She looks to him with a raised eyebrow, “If you are so prophetic, why did you play into the little game that was going on in there?” The king chuckles to himself as his driver comes back around to pick him up, “Oh, I just like to create a little dissention in Mr. Stark’s imaginary fortress. He’s fun to play with.”

Natasha gets dangerously close to T’Challa, their breaths mingling as she holds onto his arm at the crook of his elbow, “Be careful, Cat King, or _your_ imaginary fortress might have a search party knocking down its doors.”

“Oh, Miss Romanoff,” his tone is still confident, voice low and direct, “I say, _let them look_.”

**SOMEWHERE IN ROMANIA.**

“Cu plăcere.”

He ducks his head and tells the child to run along, his Romanian a little rusty. Smacking a mosquito off of his face, he returns to his booth to hear a buzzing against the table. Another young adult walks up, telling him that he’s been experiencing a terrible fever for days now and he isn’t sure what it is.

The doctor has to hold his hand up, the phone vibrating on the table suddenly taking precedence. He nods, telling the young man that he’ll be with him in a moment in his crackly foreign-speak. When he looks down, the text message on the screen is a surprise to see.

_  
We miss you big guy. Need that brain of yours whenever you’re ready to lend a hand in Wakanda. Sper că te distrezi în România._  

He chuckles, feeling the muscles of his back ripple at the thought of going back to where he was never really welcomed to in the first place. Shaking his head, he sends back a reply before turning to his patient.

“Care este problema?”

**SOMEWHERE IN THE OCEAN.**

“You still haven’t found them?” Ross snorts, rolling his eyes as he looks over the security guard’s shoulder. The man shakes his head, “No sir. The cameras were the first thing to go, and then the guards were knocked out in a way that left no visual. I-I don’t understand…”

“You know what I don’t understand,” the man in charge begins to utter, crossing his arms as he stands in the middle of the room and looks at all the empty cells, “How the entirety of this government organization can’t find a man in blue spandex carrying around a big frisbee!”

The staff at the raft prison tense at the sudden intensity of Ross’s tone, men stuffing their noses into the computers to keep themselves out of his line of sight.

He stalks out the back but before he leaves, he says through pursed lips, “ _Find them._ ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited to see what you guys think of all the characters!! I've mentioned a lot of them and I'd love to know if you think that I'm writing them good enough or not. Also, just a side note: this is /not/ going to be explicitly following the comics so please don't hold that against me!! I'm taking things from the MCU and going at it like that, I might bring in a villain from the comics that we've yet to see in the movies, but other than that, it's pretty much an AU in post-civil war timing!! Thank you guys for reading, and I'd love to hear your comments! <3


	3. три

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hope you guys are liking this!! let me know in a comment!!

 

**WAKANDAN PALACE.  
_Three days ago._**

“Wait, excuse me?”

Anna looks over to Sam, but Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from her, hands shaking by his sides.

“You two _know_ each other?!” Sam’s voice is unbelieving, eyes bugged out with his goggles held in his left hand.

Steve puts his hands on his hips, eyes narrowing as if he’s trying to figure everything out, “If Buck knew you, _I_ probably knew you. Right?” Bucky takes a step back, his heart hammering in his chest.

_Not again,_ he thinks, _not again. I’m safe here. I am okay. Please, not again._

Anna chuckles, crossing her arms over her chest. Her body is glowing just barely enough to be noticeable, the blood on her skin casting a red hue, “Yeah, Steve, you knew me.”

Cap can’t place her voice, though, and it unnerves him. He sighs, “Well, we can play catch up later. Right now I need you to give me a mission report.”

Anna bites her lower full lip, tasting metal from the split of skin, and glances over at the television for just a moment to catch the title screen on the tv: _The Assassination of JFK._ Her eyes turn a sad shade of gray and a sigh catches in her throat as her eyes connect to Bucky, “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”

He looks at her, a storm brewing in the sea of his irises, fear taking over the rigidness of his muscles, “De ce esti aici?”

_Why are you here?_

“Nu sunt aici pentru tine,” her voice is low, fingertips starting to buzz. She wants nothing more than to run and hide, to get the dirt and blood caked underneath her skin to rub away.

_I am not here for you._

“What the hell…” Sam mutters, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Where’s the other multilingual assassin when you need her?”

“Buck,” Steve’s voice is almost harsh, the protectiveness of his friend starting to rise like the bile in his throat. “What did she say?”

It is as if Bucky can’t even hear Steve, his mind locked on the words Anna speaking, “Atunci cine eşti aici?”

_Then why are you here?_

“She’s not doing that brain blender thing to Ole Ice Cube, is she?” Sam asks, leaning into Steve. He looks over at his friend, his teammate, “Because if she tells him to kill us, we’re pretty much dead.”

Steve shakes his head and then Wanda reassures them with a nod of her own, “He is clear of mind,” she explains, “but deep in thought. I do not know what language they are speaking, but it is not a conversation they want us to hear. She is blocking me out.”

Anna’s eyes grow sad as she responds to Bucky, “N-am vrut să vin aici.” Her hands fidget in front of her body, “N-am știut că ai fi aici.” Bucky sees the bottoms of her feet turn orange like metal in a fire and notices her hands are a pale glow as she adds, “Nu sunt aici să -ți fac asta.”

_I did not want to come here, I did not know you’d be here. I am not here to do_ that _._

“Mulțumesc,” he nods his head, his eyes searching her face. “Îmi pare rău pentru prietenii mei.”

_Thank you. I am sorry about my friends._

“They are acting in good faith,” Anna’s voice is in English now, the glow to her hands disappeared. “I do not blame them for wanting to protect you.”

“Esti bine?” Bucky’s voice is softer now, Steve notices. His hands are no longer trembling and now he can’t stop his eyes from examining her frame, concern blooming in his chest whenever he finally takes in all the blood.

_Are you okay?_

Anna is searching his face, wondering how he can be kind when he knows what she does, “Nu știu încă.”

_I do not know._

She turns, no longer able to hold his gaze, her brunette ponytail swishing over her shoulders, “As I said before, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Good,” Sam mutters, “because I’m getting real tired of these surprises.”

T’Challa shifts his weight to his opposite foot, arms across his chest as he admires the scene playing out before him. Bucky still seems to be in some sort of trance that Steve can’t understand. Even when he smacks him on the arm to try and break him from it he doesn’t look away from the girl splattered in blood standing in the corridor.

They start walking down the hallway, Bucky straggling. T’Challa takes his place beside Anna, stepping in stride with her. He nods backwards, “You two know each other?”

Anna’s heart is heavy, her eyes almost black as she keeps her eyes on the floor, watching her toes hit the tile, “You could say that. Unfortunately.”

“I understand,” the king chuckles, trying to lighten the mood to get her out of her despair. “Being friends with Barnes is no easy task.”

If anything, this makes her more rigid. The muscles in her shoulders coil, her jawline becoming defined as she grinds her teeth against one another. “We weren’t friends,” she tells him in a low voice. “Not even close.”

From the back of the pack, Steve huffs and nudges his friend again, “Buck?”

“Wrong arm,” Anna supplies, nodding her head to the left side of Bucky where Steve is standing even though he swears she couldn’t see them as they walked from behind.

An embarrassed flush covers Steve’s cheeks as he switches sides. James is finally out of his daze, filing behind the group as they walk towards the conference room. The blonde crosses his arms over his chest, turning his voice to a hushed whisper, “You _know_ her?”

“I do,” Bucky nods, his eyes trained forward on her ponytail that’s sashaying back and forth while she walks. He looks uncertain for a fleeting moment, “I think.”

“Well, you knew her name,” Steve’s tone is harsh. Bucky is usually a much better liar. “And you had a whole conversation with her in some other language none of us speak. So obviously there’s something there.”

“Don’t get your knickers knotted, tiny,” Bucky jokes as his demeanor changes and he pokes Steve’s ribs with his metal elbow. “You won’t be competing with her. I don’t know hardly anything, we were stationed at the same Hydra base one time. It wasn’t anything spectacular or life changing.”

“Alright, pal,” he concedes, chest heaving. Steve doesn’t look very convinced. “I guess we’ll see what she knows.”

Bucky shakes his head in agreement, the pit in his stomach growing into a boulder with every step they take towards the private room. Sam knocks the blinds down, Steve pulls out a chair for Anna, and then Wanda disables the audio and video system. T’Challa takes his seat at the head of the table, Anna directly across from him with the others on either side of the wooden furniture.

“So,” her voice is dry as her gray eyes touch on everybody but James. “What do you want to hear?”

Sam snorts and mumbles under his breath, “Why you killed my Red Wing…”

“He was a nuisance,” she quips, flicking a tendril of hair from her face. “You _shocked_ me! And is that _really_ the kind of questions you want to ask?”

T’Challa can’t help the chuckle that bubbles from his lips, “I agree with the girl, that thing is a bit annoying.” Sam rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair, his lower lip in a slight pout as he ejects himself from the conversation momentarily.

Cap leans forward with his hands on the table, “How did you escape?”

“They didn’t have any reason for me to stay,” her voice is dull. She plucks at her dirty fingernails, picking away at the dried blood, any subtle glow to her body now as gone as the life in her voice. “So, I left.”

“Yeah, and took everybody else with you,” Sam speaks again, his goggles discarded onto the table. “What caused you to go on a damn psychopathic rage mission?”

“Shut up, Sam,” Bucky snaps from his seat next to Steve. “She was in a Hydra base for Christ’s sakes, could you _try_ to be a little more insensitive?”

Sam turns and looks at Bucky, eyes indignant and wide, “ _Excuse me?_ She comes running out of a Hydra base, covered in blood with the bodies of everyone inhabiting that place left behind her and you just want to _defend_ her?!”

_Good,_ Anna thinks. _Don’t trust me. Don’t believe me. Be afraid._

Bucky is silent, and Sam thinks that he has won this small spat, but as the brunette’s upper lip curls, he knows he’s in for it. Bucky’s knuckles are white as he makes his fingers into fists on the tops of his thighs, “Do you _know_ what Hydra does?”

_He might not know, James, but_ you _do. And so do I._

“Don’t start this with me, Icicle,” Sam tosses his head back, collapsing in his chair as it wheels a few feet back from the force. “She killed people.”

“So did I.”

Sam rolls his eyes, “You were _brain washed._ It’s a little different.”

_Stop defending me, Barnes. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be._

Anna’s palms burn with the sensation of what could possibly happen next and she tries to push the words out of her head, tries to keep the orders she has underneath the recesses of her brain. She doesn’t want to do this, not here.

“Bird-man has a point,” T’Challa nods.

His jaw dropping, Sam looks between T’Challa and Steve, “Even kitty litter agrees with me!”

Bucky turns to see Anna scratching with her glowing hand at her chest where there is caked blood, his ribs throbbing at her self-destruction. He watches as a fresh cut opens and tough, teal eyes linger as the wounds seal themselves. His breathing altercates for a short moment but when it passes, he clenches his jaw and glares at Sam, “You don’t know what happens inside those walls. _I_ do.”

“Okay,” Steve holds out his arms, interrupting, “simmer down.”

Sam mutters under his breath and on any other day, Bucky would sarcastically tell him – _I heard that!_ – but today is no ordinary day.

T’Challa leans back, looking much more like a political leader than a warrior. If he’s honest with himself, this is the most T’Challa has heard from Barnes in a while. It is strange to hear his voice carry so much weight and emotion. Even his body language is rigid, his spine straight and his fists curled now against the wooden tabletop.

“Look,” Steve tries to reel everything back in, “Anna? Right?”

“ _Annalise,_ ” her biting tone corrects him.

Steve is confused; he heard Bucky call her Anna. His eyebrows furrow and he looks over to his friend who is intently studying the girl across the table.

“Okay,” his voice is slow as he redirects his attention to her. “ _Annalise_ , I’m sorry.”

She nods and he notices her finger starts bleeding from where she was picking at her cuticles. Steve is distracted as he watches her wipe it away only for there to be no cut left behind.

_Tell them_ , she thinks, looking at their curious faces. _Tell them just enough to get them to believe you._

“You want to know what’s wrong with me, I get it,” she cuts him off when she sees him staring, stuffing her hands underneath her thighs. “I’m enhanced, I scare you – even more than Princess Paranormal over here.”

Wanda’s jaw drops, the red hue returning to her eyes.

“I’m kind of like her, in certain ways.” Annalise shrugs, continuing in a distant tone, “I’m weird, and I’m scary. I’m sorry for that. It’s my defense mechanism, I guess. The long and the skinny is – all of my bones are wrapped with vibranium, like Cap’s shield. I have the healing properties like that pool dude, and I can control the elements.”

Annalise raises an eyebrow and looks over to Sam, her composure a little too excited to announce: “Hence, the lightning.”

Sam mimics her with his mouth bobbing open and shut, eyes focused on his legs, head shaking slightly in a mocking way. He scoffs like a ten year-old, “Yeah, I got _that_ part.”

“What about in the woods?” Steve questions, tilting his chair back. “You talked to me, but…it was just in my head.”

Anna pushes her hair back from her face, tightening her ponytail, “Yeah, I kind of have the whole mind control thing also.”

Steve can’t help but notice that Bucky tenses in his chair, so he reaches over to put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. He looks over to the girl; she seems so innocent and yet so tainted. He can’t help but assume that this is merely scratching the surface of who she really is.

Hearing his thoughts, Anna fights back a sinisterly sad smile, thinking: _Oh Cap, you don’t even know the half of it._

“Plus,” she adds, a bit of arrogance lacing her tone as her head bobs to the side, “I have a biochemistry degree. Sort of.”

“So, Miss Mystery,” T’Challa steps in, his hands in front of his waist as he walks towards her chair, “Should we fear you, or call you friend?”

“You should do both,” her voice is dark, eyes cutting towards him in a flicker.

The room drops in temperature as it becomes eerily quiet. Her threat-slash-promise lingers in the air and Bucky seems to be the only one unfazed by her sudden frightening statement. Steve glances down at his friend, licks his lips, and then turns his attention back to the girl sitting across from him.

“I have to admit, this doesn’t necessarily look like we should lean in your favor,” Steve comments, blue eyes boring into her. Anna shrugs, raising her hands to sit them on the table, “I didn’t ask you to lean in my favor, Captain.”

_If you were smart, Steve,_ she wishes she could get the courage to project her thoughts into his brain, _you would_ not _lean in my favor._

“This is ridiculous.” Sam speaks up, standing. Anna nods, “I agree.” She turns her eyes to the Captain, “I told you in the woods that I was dangerous, that you should let me go. Why didn’t you?”

Steve Rogers nods his head, swallowing thickly and pursing his lips, “You were worth saving.”

“Who is to say I needed saving?!” she stands quickly, her feet growing warm underneath her.

Sam’s eyes widen and even Wanda seems to shake a little in her chair. Steve holds his hands up in a surrender-type way, shaking his head, “I don’t mean that you did. You just didn’t seem in control, and then you—you _asked_ me to knock you out. You _asked_ me to do something. Even after all that silent suffering, you reached out to me.”

_B_ _e nice,_ Anna reminds herself. _Be nice so they’ll take you in. Stop being so scary._

“Look,” Annalise sighs, rubbing her temples. “I-I just…I’ve been in a not-so wonderful position for the past seventy-five years of my life, and I don’t want to go back to being under someone else’s control.”

It gets quiet again as everyone processes what Anna admitted.

“Seventy-five years?” Sam is the first to speak. He scoffs, “I feel like I’m walking around the damn Smithsonian, what will all you freaky fossils around me.”

Steve takes in a deep breath, “Look, this is a lot to process. It was difficult enough for me to realize that Bucky and I had been through the same things, and now there’s another one of us. So, let’s just take a night to sleep on it. We’ll revisit all this in the morning.”

“Another one of us?” Anna’s tone is incredulous as she raises her eyebrows. “I’m not _one of you_.”

He turns to look at Annalise, and she can see why he’s the leader, why everyone seems to look up to him. His eyes are soft, kind, but there is a certainty to his voice that she can’t mistake for anything but authority.

“Close enough,” he says while reaching out a hand. Steve looks pointedly at her, “I’ve got some fresh clothes you can borrow after you shower.” Anna’s fingers tremble by her sides and she smirks in a sad way, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Without hesitation Steve nods, “I have no doubt. C’mon.”

Anna then takes his hand, the warmth in her toes gone at his touch. He helps her to her feet and tucks her chair underneath the table as she migrates from it. The group disbands, everyone going in their own directions. T’Challa traipses back up the stairs and Wanda starts towards her own end of the floor. Sam grumbles to himself before nudging Bucky towards the door.

“They’re not that bad after you get used to them,” Steve mentions as they start walking down the hallway. Annalise nods, wrapping her grubby arms around herself for some self-comfort. She doesn’t see how Bucky’s eyes follow them as they walk towards Steve’s quarters, but doesn’t have the time to catch him staring because Sam pushes him down the hall.

“I’m sure,” she responds, her voice tired. “Not many people make great first impressions. Right now, I’m one of them.”

Steve sighs, opening the door for her that leads into his room, “Annalise,” he grasps her elbow gently so he doesn’t startle her, “I understand you’re scared and you’re defensive.” Her gray eyes are wide but she is listening. “And I’m sorry if I contributed to that. I get that you don’t want to tell us everything, especially if it’s really triggering for you. Maybe it’s bad for Bucky too, I don’t know. But, what I do know,” he walks her through the bedroom, “is that things normally turn out okay in the end.”

“That’s what the heroes get to say,” she tells him in a slow voice. The back of her hand swipes at her cheek quickly, “Things don’t normally turn out that way for me.”

_Horrible things happen when I try to be a hero,_ she thinks as she remembers Alaska and Romania.

He shrugs and continues into the bathroom, standing in the doorway. She notices that he fills up the entire space, his head a few inches from brushing the frame. Steve places a set of folded clothes on the countertop, “All I know is that with everything, you have to have hope. It’s cliché, and definitely overused, but you have to be willing to look up in order for things to go that way.”

_You haven’t changed a bit, have you Steve?_

A small smile quirks up Annalise’s lips and she nods, her head dipping to the floor, “I believe you, Cap. Maybe I’ll tell you a little bit about what I’ve seen and _then_ you can give me your hero speech.”

He chuckles in response, her dry humor very fitting to what he’s seen of her so far, “I will tell it to you again, Annalise. I promise. Anyone has the choice to be a hero, so long as they make the right decision when it comes down to it.”

“I know,” Annalise turns the knob on the tub and water starts rushing out, “but choosing to do the _right_ thing never really made me a hero.”

Steve walks towards the door, beginning to shut it as he sees her reaching for the hemming of her shirt, “Well, Annalise, I promise we’ll let you be a hero. At least once.”

The blush blooming on her cheeks is inescapable, the ever-present optimism that is Steven Grant Rogers affecting even the stone-cold girl in the bathroom. She looks down at the floor, tugging on her lower lip, and then glances back up at him, “I’ll hold you to that one.”

“I’m counting on it.”

**WAKANDA. STEVE’S BATHROOM.**

Annalise watches as the crimson swirls down the drain, wishing it would take the memories of the blood with it. She sees every single one of them: the blonde woman with her esophagus crushing underneath Anna’s fingers, the dark-skinned doctor with bright red staining the front of his lab coat, the young man who will never open his eyes again.

“Stop it,” she forces herself to stop thinking.

Anna grabs the t-shirt off of the counter, not bothering with undergarments; the boys could just deal. She looks it over, recognizes the symbol of the old SHIELD organization printed on the pocket of the black tee and a smile takes over her lips. There was a time that she wished she could be a part of something better.

_But you’re not_.

She wants to slam her head into the tile walls of the shower room, wishing her head would dent but she knows it wouldn’t. The vibranium lining in her skull makes sure of that.

The black fabric swallows her frame whole and the sweatpants she has to tie at the waist. She slips the black socks up her feet and lets her dark hair roam free against her back. She sighs, feeling clean for the first time in a while, and stretches out her limbs. Her stomach growls and she frowns, not remembering the last time she consumed food.

_Who has time to eat when you’re too busy worrying about massacring everyone inside of a military base?_

Annalise finds her way to the kitchen, passing Wanda’s room along the way. It’s awkward, so she doesn’t stop, and then she begins to regret the whole _Princess Paranormal_ comment from earlier.

Stumbling around, she decides she wants some hot tea and oatmeal for what she’s going to dub as _dinner_. So, she starts hunting.

Anna finds the instant oatmeal first, but has to open all eight of the lower cabinets before finding a pot to boil the water in. While she’s at it, she starts looking for the tea, but can’t seem to find it. The steam begins rising in the pot and the bubbles make her nervous for some reason, clouding her vision.

“Now,” she mumbles, flicking through all of the cabinets. “Just where are—Oh! Found you.”

Only problem is, the _found you_ is muttered to the hot tea packets that have conveniently taken up residence on the top shelf, about four feet above her head. She pushes herself up on her tip-toes to try and reach it, but she can’t. The only way she can is if she conjures up a storm or a fire or something, which is utterly pointless.

As she’s about to steal one of the bar stools, a familiar voice comes from the living area, “Steve is the only one who drinks tea, that’s why it’s all the way up there.”

“Well,” she tries to play off her uneasiness and surprise with sarcasm, “that’s just silly.”

“Actually, it isn’t,” Bucky chuckles, walking forward, “It leaves room for Wanda’s cookies on the lower level shelf.”

Annalise wants to run and hide; she wants to scream. Bucky doesn’t make her uncomfortable, it’s what he represents that burdens her soul. She’s seen those cerulean eyes so up close she knows about the small flecks of yellow that hide close to his pupil, the dark circles around the outer rim of his irises that widen when he’s in pain.

Bucky’s cybernetic arm brushes over her shoulder as he stands up next to her to grab the tea out of the cupboard. Anna reaches over to grab the boiling water off the stove and she gently pours it into a cup. Although, when she turns and holds her hands out for the tea bags, she’s surprised to see Bucky’s intense gaze settled on her face.

“You shouldn’t fall for Steve’s sunshine shit,” James tells her, his tone low. There’s a mere six inches separating their frames and Annalise would be lying if she didn’t say she felt her feet getting warm inside of Captain’s socks. “He doesn’t get us. He’s _like_ us, but not entirely.”

Anna swallows thickly, her eyes scattered as she looks at a dozen different spots on James’ face. At one point in time she was allowed to touch the freckles sporadically patterned on his cheeks. Now, she just feels empty, cold. It hurts to see him this close.

“He was always _fighting_ the bad guy,” James continues, the tea box crumbling in his tight grip, “he never had to _be_ the bad guy.”

                “Some of us never stop being the bad guy.” Anna’s voice is quiet as she picks at her nails. Her body is dull where Bucky is used to seeing her glow, and he wonders why. He hates the sadness plaguing her.

Licking her lips, she takes a breath and her words come out stuttered because she can’t believe he’s letting her get this close, “You were _never_ the bad guy, James.”

When she says his name, a twinge sets off in his chest like a stick of dynamite has been lit. He takes a step away from her and his pupils blow enough to almost swallow his irises. She reaches out to touch his arm, to tell him that she’s not there to hurt him, when she hears another voice come from the hallway.

“Don’t touch him.”

Annalise looks up, feeling her hands warm with the glow that is ever-familiar. She sees a bow held in strong, thick arms, and an arrow pointed straight for her heart. So desperately does she want to tell him to _just do it_. Mostly because she knows it won’t work, but partially because she wishes it did.

“I-I wasn’t…” she sighs, willing her eyes not to water.

_Yes you were._

There was a time when she could touch him freely. Sometimes, not so freely. She preferred not to think about those times, to relish the times that he didn’t mind her hands.

“I’m sorry, James,” she grits her teeth. Anna looks over to the man standing behind Bucky, thanks him with a nod and a smile, “Thank you. For looking out for him.”

Annalise leaves the oatmeal and tea on the counter and walks away quickly, a searing footprint left behind in her wake. As soon as she reaches the room she was told would be hers, her hands shake in her lap and she wills the white glowing to go away.

“Go away, go away,” she slams her fist into her head, trying to make the words stop repeating in her mind. “ _Get out of my head_. Go away!”

She’s curled up on the floor, her head cradled in her hands with her fingers threaded through her hair. Annalise rocks back and forth for minutes that she doesn’t care enough to count. The images flash through, time after time where her hands found their familiar place on his temples, her apologies tumbling freely from her lips.

“I’m sorry,” her dreams echo into reality as her body gives up. She falls lifeless to the floor, eyes closing in a sleep that arrives welcomed, “I’m so sorry.”

**CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS. WAKANDA.**

“What is it, Barton?” Captain’s voice is tight. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, laid in bed with a book in his hands.

Clint clears his throat, bow and arrows shouldered, “I don’t think they should be allowed near one another, Cap.”

Steve’s eyes glint upwards, “What?”

“Soldier and the new girl,” he tells his friend, stepping in and closing the door. He hushes his tone to a whisper, “I think she triggers the bad stuff in him, if you know what I mean.”

Closing his book, Steve sits with one leg tucked into his body as he looks at the archer, “I kind of know what you mean. He looked real bugged out today when she came and then that whole awkward conversation in a foreign language. What did you see?”

“She was in the kitchen making something and he started talking to her, I don’t know what he said,” Clint hates lying to his friend, but he doesn’t want to let him know what Bucky said. “But she tried to say his name and reach out to him and that’s when I drew my arrow. He was acting like she’d brain washed him, but I didn’t see anything crazy go down. He just froze, stood there like he was in the cryo chamber.”

Steve nods slowly, licking his lips as he begins mulling over it all. “Well,” he runs a hand through his hair, “she’s in a room opposite of the building from Buck, so I think everything should be okay. I’ll keep a close eye out on her, make sure nothing smells funny.”

He stands and walks over to the man he can now call friend, partner, and ally, and smiles, “Thanks for telling me, Clint. It means a lot.”

“I know you’re just trying to keep him safe,” Clint admits, reaching out to shake Cap’s hand. “I just want to do what’s best for all of us. Keep us _all_ safe.”

“I know,” Steve lets a small breath out. He understands what Clint is saying, and he himself knows the lengths he’d go for Bucky. “I just don’t want to abandon her just yet.”

“Get some sleep, old timer,” Clint chuckles as he squeezes Captain’s hand. He walks towards the door, “You and I are sparring partners tomorrow. Better bring your A game.”

A smirk takes over Steve’s lips, but Clint can see the emptiness behind it, “I’ll bring mine if you bring yours.”

“Like hell I am,” Clint comments before walking towards the door. He doesn’t turn as he struts down the hall, his voice echoing as he gets further away, “Sleep sound, Cap. You need all the beauty rest you can get!”

**WAKANDA. A FEW HOURS LATER.**

                As if Clint cursed him, here Steve is at three in the morning with the inability to sleep. He takes a shower, reads a couple chapters in his current book, watches some sort of news channel, and then finally concedes and starts meandering around the campus.

                His legs take him to the training area where he looks through the glass, running scenes back through his head of days in which he spent countless hours in this room. Arms cross and he smiles sadly, remembering that it doesn’t matter how many days you clock in, it’s what happens in the field that matters.

                As if it’s going to help to wake someone else up, Steve walks towards Bucky’s room to go see if he can talk to his best friend about his ill feelings. He has a pit in his stomach and he isn’t sure why, as if something is bothering him but his mind is clouded as to what exactly the source is.

 “C’mon,” a foreign voice is mumbling from the hallway ahead. “Just do it…”

Steve looks up to see a glowing figure standing in front of his best friend’s door.

“Annalise?”

Her eyes are wide when she turns, the glow fading out instantly. Her hand is close to the doorknob and her lower lip is trembling. Steve cocks his head, his brows knitting together, “What are you doing, kid?”

“Uh,” her throat bobs as she swallows. She grinds her teeth together and he hears her mutter, “Not here. Not _now_.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Steve’s muscles lock up in his legs, his hands ready to react if the situation goes south. Immediately Anna shakes her head, “I-I…”

“Annalise?” he questions her, taking another step forward. “What are you doing here?”

Her hands squeeze together and she wonders what his neck would feel like beneath her fingers, his pulse slowing as she watches his eyes flutter with distress. She shakes her head, pushing the thoughts away. Her breathing is labored as she looks up at Steve, a man she cares for deeply, and Annalise regrets the tears that begin pooling in her eyes.

“I can’t tell you that,” she answers him finally. It’s not like she can lie to him, he knows that something shifty is about to happen.

Another step forward. Steve holds his hands up in mock surrender, trying to make her feel more at ease, “Annalise,” his voice is slow, “ _what_ are you doing here?”

“Neutralize and retrieve,” Anna’s voice is robotic when she responds.

Her eyes have gone to a milky white as Steve gets closer to her. She shakes her head, holding up her hands which are now glowing white instead of golden, “Steve, don’t do this.”

Instantaneously she’s thrown back almost eighty years ago to high school.

_“Steve,” she murmurs to no one but herself as she watches from the booth. “Don’t do it.”_

_She’s watching as he fixes his hair like he usually does, running his hands through it like Bucky seems to be doing about every millisecond. He licks his lips, looks down to make sure his clothes are on straight, and then walks forward._

_Annalise sighs, “If you’re gonna ask a girl to dance, don’t ask Margie.”_

_Just as she predicted, Steve is turned down within seconds, his head hanging slightly as he walks away from the blonde with the perfect curls pinned to her head. Anna wishes she could help, reach out to him or something, but instead she shrinks further into her corner booth seat and watches as Bucky leaves the redhead he's schmoozing to go and console his best friend._

_“If only,” Annalise marvels. She takes a sip of her Coke and rolls her eyes, “If only.”_

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs the talking to,” Steve’s voice is quiet. If he wanted, he could yell and Bucky would be out of his room in moments. Annalise knows that. So why is he restraining?

“Steve,” her voice is slow, “i-it isn’t what it looks like.”

His hands curl into fists at his side as he prepares for the inevitable. He shakes his head, “It never is.”

“I don’t want this to happen, Steve,” Annalise is panicking now, her irises lost to the whiteness. She holds her hands up, praying that she doesn’t do anything she’ll regret. Even though he is her mission, she doesn’t _want_ him to be.

“Don’t want _what_ to happen, Annalise?” Steve questions, taking a step closer.

Anna mirrors his action, but backwards. Her back thuds against the door and she’s afraid of Bucky coming out and her having to actually carry out what she was sent here to do.

“I don’t want to _hurt_ you, Steve,” she snaps at him, her voice tough. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Why are you in front of Bucky’s room?” Steve’s voice is strained. “It’s like, three in the morning.”

A pain settles in her side as she braces herself for what comes next. What _always_ comes next, it seems. Everything ends in a fight. Everything ends in death.

_At least where you’re concerned._

“I have a job to do,” she answers quietly, looking down at her feet which are glowing through her socks. “A job I _have_ to do.”

“And what might that be?” His fingers dig into his palms and he wishes that he had his shield with him. He watches as she sets her feet in some sort of battle stance, her fists by her side. The milky white of her eyes is frightening to watch, he misses her pale gray irises.

Anna’s voice is a growl when she finally responds, an echo in her tone, “To _kill_ you.”

She launches at him, landing a punch to his face that knocks him backwards. Anna lands on her feet, crouched in front of him with a terrified grimace on her face. Steve can see the tears sitting on her lids, threatening to spill over.

“Don’t make me do this!” she yells, her entire body glowing, shuddering.

_Please, Steve._

“You can’t tell me you’re here to kill me and then beg for my forgiveness,” Steve says harshly. Annalise looks up at him and he sees the sadness that is so deeply rooted in her that it makes his heart break. “I don’t take attempts on my life so lightly, Annalise.”

“I-I’m trying,” she groans and digs her hands into her head, pulling on her hair. “I’m trying to keep this as painless as possible.”

“ _Killing_ me was supposed to be painless?” Steve huffs as he swipes her feet out from under her. Annalise jumps up and dodges it, landing a swift kick to his face to send him reeling.

“Just tell me what you’re doing here,” Steve asks again, pleading. She swallows, her eyes searching for something in his face. “I need to see him.”

“See him?” Steve asks, lunging forward to pin her shoulders down with both of his hands as he locks his legs down on top of hers. “You don’t sound very convincing. You saw him earlier.”

Anna shakes her head, her eyes starting to return to normal, “No, it isn’t like that. I-I have...I— _ugh_.”

In one fell swoop, she brings her knee up and it connects with his midsection, sending Steve rolling onto the floor at the impact. Her strength isn’t something he was necessarily ready for and so he’s surprised when she settles on top of him and he doesn’t feel like he’s budging much.

“I’m so sorry for this,” she murmurs.

Steve watches as her eyes return to white, irises disappeared, and her whole body glows intensely. He shuts his eyes and turns his head, but he feels fingertips digging into his temples. Lightning courses through his head, jolting his body. He feels his feet jerking around as his chest heaves from the intensity of whatever is going on.

He tries to speak but his lips are glued shut. Suddenly it’s as if someone has turned off the lights because all he sees is black.

When Steve sits up, he’s surprised to see Bucky by his side.

“Wh-What?” he shakes his head, rubbing his temples. He can still feel this searing pain, but from what?

Bucky chuckles, “Damn sleepwalker. You scared the shit out of me, Steve!”

“How’d I get here?” Steve marvels, looking around. This isn’t his bedroom, this isn’t where he remembers closing his eyes. Bucky sighs dramatically and helps Steve up, “C’mon, Captain America. Let’s get you back to your room.”

Along the way, Bucky makes all sorts of jokes about throwing Steve in a nursing home if he keeps acting up like this, but Steve can barely hear him. All he can think about is the fact that there is something dubious about the whole situation but his head hurts so badly that all he wants to do is lie down.

“Alright now, Steven,” Bucky continues his teasing, “breakfast is at seven, shuffleboard starts at nine.”

Managing to punch his friend in the arm, Steve lays down on top of his crumpled covers. “Shut up, jerk.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, pal,” the brunette walks to the doorway. Steve doesn’t see the concerned expression etched into Bucky’s face because he’s already rolled over and asleep, but it is clearly there.

One thing sticks out in Bucky’s mind: Steve Rogers _doesn’t_ sleepwalk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY HEART IS CRYING, IS YOUR HEART CRYING????  
> ps, come talk to me on tumblr at sargantbuck.tumblr.com


	4. четыре

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway   
> In which Annalise believes herself to be broken, but Steve manages to show her that maybe she's not as fractured as she thought.

**NEW YORK. ONE MONTH LATER.**

The sleek black car rolls down the pathway and Tony’s hands fist in anger. He sighs, running fingertips through his hair to straighten it out from the matted mess it has been the past few days. He pushes all the documents about  _ Assassin X  _ off of the table, not wanting them to be bared to the king.

“Mister Stark,” FRIDAY’s automated voice echoes in his room. “You have a visitor.”

He nods, a sarcastic chuckle falling from his lips, “I see that, FRIDAY. Where is Miss Romanoff?”

There is a mechanical whirring noise and he closes out the floating screens of his personal computer. Standing, he slides on a hoodie, and listens for his AI’s voice, “She is out for the day, Mr. Stark. Something about needing greasy food.”

Tony huffs and kicks on a pair of tennis shoes, “Well, who let  _ her  _ take the day off? That’s hardly fair.” He closes his door behind him and makes his way towards the door where T’Challa will be entering. “Make sure you text her and let her know that I expect leftovers.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

His footsteps are loud as he traipses down the stairs, not really caring who hears him. The door to the parking lot opens and T’Challa walks through, his attire much more relaxed this time around. He plans on staying, Tony knows that by the bag in his hands.

“Ah,” his voice comes slow as he reaches out to shake Tony’s hand, “Mr. Stark. Your welcoming committee is slacking.”

Tony shrugs, “Apparently she needed something disgusting to eat.”

T’Challa chuckles deeply and follows Tony to where he’ll be staying. “Thank you for extending a hand to me, Stark,” T’Challa mentions as he continues walking to Tony’s lab. “It’s much more accommodating than a hotel around here.”

“Well,” Tony smiles as he looks over his shoulder, “here you’ll be treated like a king.”

His brown eyes roll as they come to the computers, “What did you find from the hard-drive I supplied you?”

Tony taps his watch and then a set of images projects into thin air. T’Challa steps back, taking it all in. There are no photographs, except for of Barnes, and a few mission reports. Tony sighs, “This is what I pulled, what I could dig through. She’s untraceable. In fact, the only reason we know she is actually a  _ she  _ is because of the singular video we could find and the message FRIDAY traced.”

“Then what are these reports?” T’Challa questions, stepping closer to a specific spot in particular.

Nodding, Tony steps forward, spreading the things out so they no longer overlap, “ _ That  _ is the mission report from 2011. They made a mistake, left a video.” He clicks a button and instantly the whole wall of his lab turns into a movie screen.

_ “Mission Report, August 19, 2011,” a voice speaks from behind the camera. _

_ Dark hair frames her face, her head dipped down so her features are unable to be distinguished. She nods, her lower lip visible as it trembles, tears streaming down her cheeks as they drip onto her lap. _

_ “Winter Soldier currently Missing in Action.” _

_ “Why, Assassin X?” the voice prods her harshly. _

_ Her head angles up and she looks directly into the camera with wild but simultaneously empty pale eyes, a saddened smile curling her mouth upward on one side, “Because I did not comply.” _

The video cuts to black, but Tony freezes it on the frame that leaves her face on the wall. His hands ball up into fists as he crosses his arms over his chest, “What do you see, Your Highness?”

“A broken soul,” he answers in a mystic tone, his eyes unable to take in her full appearance.

He has seen this woman, has many a conversation with her over the past weeks. He took her under his arm, using the guise that it is his duty as Wakandan King, but he knows better.

“I can’t believe you,” Tony glances at the younger man in confusion, his brows knitted together, “She is the reason Barnes got out,  _ she  _ is the reason for so many things, T’Challa.”

The king shakes his head, “You cannot displace your self-loathing onto this woman. It isn’t fair or right.”

Tony’s eyes narrow, his jaw tightening, “I can’t believe your arrogance,  _ Your Highness.  _ This—this,  _ assassin _ – she brought in Wanda and Pietro. Pietro is  _ dead  _ because of what she did.”

“Have you not read your books, Mr. Stark?” T’Challa’s voice is smooth. “Because I have.”

Tony is surprised that this man would challenge his intellect. His head cocks to the side and he pushes a button on his arm to retract the video from the wall. “Excuse me?”

“The twins  _ volunteered _ ,” T’Challa clarifies. “They participated in riots, Mr. Stark. They  _ volunteered  _ for Strucker’s experiments. This woman, this assassin, did not  _ make _ them do anything.”

“That’s what they  _ want  _ us to think,” Tony mentions, tilting his head as he grabs an apple off of the table. “What if she’s behind all of these experiments? We know that they had the scepter for a while, who knows what all they did with it?”

“Ah, yes,” T’Challa’s voice is careful, but pointed. “The scepter that you used to create Ultron.”

It seems that the king has triggered something in the billionaire standing across from him. Tony’s jaw turns rigid, his hands wrapping around his biceps as he stares harshly at the ground. He shakes his head, “Yeah, the scepter I used to help create Ultron. What does that have to do with anything?”

“People make mistakes,” T’Challa is quick to respond, his eyes boring into Tony. “Do not be so hasty to judge them when you have your own sins to atone for. We are all in the wrong.”

Tony’s lower lip quivers with the intense desire to rip this man’s arms off, but he shakes it, taking a deep breath, “I think I atoned for my sins when I went up into a black hole to get rid of an alien invasion. Or what about the time when I threw myself into a helicarrier turbine? I don’t know about you,  _ Your Highness _ , but I’m done keeping track of all the wrongs I’ve done.”

“That is a dangerous place to be, Mr. Stark,” T’Challa warns, all joking gone from his tone. “I am merely pointing out the fact that none of us are an innocent being. We were born sinners. The best we can do is try to right the wrongs we’ve done and allow others the chance to do the same.”

A huff inflates Tony’s chest, “That is quite the mighty lecture from someone whose sole mission was to kill James Barnes even though he had faulty information.”

T’Challa nods, thinking about the soldier he’s housing in his home now to try and make right his wrongs, “I agree. I realized that vengeance was quickly eating me alive, as it did to you and Captain. I no longer wanted that for myself, or for anyone else. I am willing to help you, Mr. Stark, but do not make this more personal than it already is.”

“That’s kind of difficult,” Tony admits, biting deep into the apple. He flings the screens back up onto the wall, pointing to one file specifically. There are two names labeled on the form. He chews, his voice muffled, “When I find out they’re in it  _ together _ .”

_ Assassin X _

_ Winter Soldier _

“This file,” satisfaction but also desolation rings in his tone, “is all the proof I need.”

“Proof you need for what, Mr. Stark?” T’Challa leans against the desk in the room, his arms dangling in front of his waist. Tony turns, eyes on fire, “That they’re both working for the devil.”

“And who is the Devil, Mr. Stark?” T’Challa questions, brushing a hand over his clean-shaven cheek. He looks intensely at Tony, watching as his calculating eyes slowly reach up to meet the king’s gaze.

Tony shrugs eventually, the thick silence passing, “I don’t know. But whoever he is, I’m going to kill him.”

**SOMEWHERE IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.**

She dips her hat down low, praying no one in here recognizes her. Her hair is up in a ponytail, threaded through the opening at the back of the hat. A pepperoni and pineapple pizza sits on the table, one slice on her plate as she awaits for her partner to show his face.

Just as she’s about to give up and grab a to-go box, the tall frame fills the booth’s opposite side.

“You rang?”

“Actually,” she corrects with a smirk on her face, “I texted.”

Banner shrugs, “Nuance.”

He grabs a slice of pizza off of the tray and starts eating, his casual look throwing Romanoff for a loop. She’s used to his doctor-gear and his shirtless, green raging outfit. Bruce nods, “You wanted my help?”

Natasha nods, plucking a piece of pineapple from the top of the pizza, “Things are happening, Bruce. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but you heard of the escapee from Wakanda?”

Bruce shakes his head, gulping from the soda cup in front of him. Natasha pulls out her phone and flashes it to him, revealing a photo of a dark figure hovering in midair with Wanda’s red mist surrounding her.

“That’s exciting,” Bruce muses, biting at the hard crust. “What’s the deal?”

“She tells Steve and T’Challa that she escaped,” she explains, her phone still in hand as she continues scrolling. “But there’s something between her and Barnes that no one can explain.”

“Jealous?” a dark eyebrow raises.

Natasha swallows, her eyes cutting upwards, “Of what?”

Bruce chuckles, “I’m teasing, Natasha. What else is there? Why do you need me? Or…the other guy.”

“She’s enhanced. She can control the elements, read minds, and heal,” Natasha continues, flipping her screen so Bruce can see a photo –  _ selfie?  _ – of the girl and Cap. “Not to mention she’s got vibranium around her bones, so she’s a walking tank. Steve, Wanda, and Sam encountered her in the forest, brought her back to T’Challa in Wakanda. Her name is Annalise. Unless you’re Bucky, apparently.”

Bruce bites his lip to hold back a sarcastic comment, watching as Natasha’s forehead wrinkles in thought. He nods, “And?”

“She’s got a biochemistry degree, is really familiar with the super soldier serum affecting both Rogers and Barnes,” Natasha explains with her eyes checking every exit, “but I have a feeling that this is much bigger than just her escape. She killed everyone in the hydra base in hiding. She’s dangerous. We’ve got Lang back there trying to do some tests, but no one knows these kinds of things like you do. We could use your experience, Bruce.”

He looks unconvinced, but Natasha leans in closer, “ _ Just you _ , Bruce. Not the other guy.”

Her hand reaches across the table to capture his wrist, her blue eyes honest. “I can’t be there with them. I want someone else I know I can trust there to keep me in the loop. I want to know more about her. I  _ need  _ to. I hate being in the dark like this.”

There is a contemplative look blistering on Bruce’s face, his eyes narrowing in on hers, trying to read her thoughts. Natasha was always too complicated to read, though, and Bruce knows that. But, even so, he nods, “Okay.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, her grip on his arm loosening. “I know you can figure her out. If anyone can, it’s you.”

The left side of his mouth quirks up, “When’s my flight?”

**WAKANDA.**

“How long have you been sitting out here?”

The only light on the roof is the shining female who can’t seem to get enough of the stars. She wonders if maybe the galaxy would swallow her whole and then she wouldn’t have to worry about all of this torment she can’t seem to break her mind out of.

Steve’s voice calls her from the abyss, but breaks her heart in the same token. She knows what she has to do. Annalise’s spine straightens and her hands curl into fists against the side of the wall, “I don’t know, really. Since sometime this morning.”

“He’s going to come back, you know,” Steve says while slinging his legs over the side of the building.

Annalise’s heart speeds up, but she forces her glow to dull out until it is pitch black save for the light of the moon. It casts an eerie glow on her face, and she wonders if she looks like all of the super villains she reads about. Anna nods, resisting the urge to lean over on Cap’s shoulder, “I know.”

It hurts to have someone so close whom she knows she could rely on, trust with her  _ life _ , and yet have to keep them at bay. For once she wants to remember what it was like to actually  _ have  _ something or someone who she could call her own. Ever since day one, she has been alone.

_ And alone you will always be, _ she reminds herself in a scolding way.

Steve chuckles, looking over at her fondly, “Who would’ve known you and the cat would be chummy?”

Anna smiles, forcing it only a slight bit. She watches as his eyes seem to brighten in the moonlight when he starts glancing at her. “I didn’t.” Her voice falters and she can’t keep her eyes on him, “Do you think Tony knows?”

Of course it wouldn’t really matter if Tony knew, Anna knows that. Her sole purpose could still be carried out whether or not the Iron Man interfered.

Cap’s eyes fall to his knees where his hands are resting; he licks his lips, chest heaving as he inhales deeply, “I don’t think so,” he lets out his breath, “ _ That’s  _ why we left Romanoff there. She was trained for this kind of work – to be a double agent. T’Challa never really gave Tony full reason to trust him, so that might be where our weak link is. The only thing that was driving him to side with Tony was truly the dishonest knowledge that Buck had killed his father.”

Oh what it would be like to have someone willing to fight and  _ die  _ for you, for your friendship. Annalise wonders if the bond could ever become strong enough that Steve would sacrifice for her. She allows her mind to wander, to explore the imaginary tangent that Captain America would lay down his life for her.

It’s a silly thought.

_ If only he knew why you were here. _

“That was so well planned,” Annalise admits sadly, her eyes downcast onto her thighs. She shakes her head, “Zemo was a nut. An intelligent nut, but still a nut. Even  _ I  _ wanted to punch him.”

Anna pushes the hair from her face and when she hears a noise, she turns, but sees nothing that would be a culprit. Besides, there’s only the stairwell that would serve as a hiding place.

“So you knew Zemo?” Captain tilts his head in questioning.

“Briefly,” Anna admits. She fiddles with her thumbs in her lap as nervousness begins to root in her belly. Her head lifts upward, “I was on a recon mission to gather intel from the original base that the Winter Soldier was held at. I had a slight run-in with Zemo, but he claimed to be with Hydra so I didn’t do anything.”

Her eyes turn dark, jaw clamping as she remembers her failure, “We later found that he had taken the book from the last handler. I should’ve killed him, but I didn’t.”

_ I should’ve killed you too, but I haven’t. _

Annalise shades her eyes from the Captain, turns her face as she remembers the wild look on Zemo’s features, how he was so calm and yet so crazy simultaneously. Her jaw locks and her hands heat up, recalling exactly what happened afterward that she could’ve also prevented had she ended Zemo’s life then and there.

“Vengeance will make a man mad,” her voice is slow, angry. She grits her teeth and looks to the stars,  _ begging  _ them to engulf her in the blackness.

“You sound like T’Challa,” Steve laughs.

There is a silence that passes between them, moments without speaking. Annalise can’t help but feel bittersweet about the whole interaction between her and Steve. She remembers the days when she watched him awkwardly ask girls to dance, the times whenever Bucky would give him the stuffed animal he’d won from one of the carnival games because Steve’s aim was terrible, and then she can’t burn away the image of him emerging as  _ Captain America: the First Avenger _ .

It would be nice to have someone that she could spend silences with; to not have to speak to have conversation. She misses the interaction with others that she knew wouldn’t run away, the ones she didn’t have to kill. She misses a time before Hydra, a time before missions and objectives and murder.

It is easy to forget that she even had a life before Arnim Zola stole it away. Everything was all a blur, except for where Steve Rogers and James Barnes are concerned. Seeing them changed her day, brought her out of the dark cloud that was her mindful of misery. Their friendship gave her hope for something better, something different than the life she had at home. A life full of hard stares and hateful words.

“Does it hurt?” Steve looks at her, tearing her gaze away from the constellations.

Anna’s head tilts and for once she doesn’t bother to harden her features in order to conceal the pain she feels, “Which part?”

He gnaws on his lower lip like he doesn’t really want to know the answer. Taking a deep breath, he swallows before clarifying, “Any of it?”

“No,” she admits quickly, her eyes falling back to her lap. She pauses to look at the constellations held still in the sky, “In fact, it makes me feel more alive.” Her tongue parts her lips as she finds the alignment of stars dubbed  _ Orion _ . She wonders if anyone would put her figure in the stars. A darkness clouds her gray irises, “I wish it did hurt, though.”

Steve immediately reaches out and grabs her hand, watching as the pale glow illuminates the rooftop in the slightest. He keeps his palm open, allowing her light to shine, “It hurt me, what they did to me. It stung. A lot.” He chuckles and shakes his head before becoming more serious, “But it would never hurt worse than the decisions I made that got people killed.”

_ You’re not kidding,  _ she thinks sarcastically, holding back a low laugh.  _ You’ll never believe what I came here to do. Now  _ that  _ is gonna hurt. _

He rubs her palm with his thumb, tracing the outlines of creasing that are there in her skin, “We can’t save everyone. I had to come to terms with that. I couldn’t save Bucky. I couldn’t save Peggy. I couldn’t save Rhodes. I couldn’t save Pietro.”

Every name he lists stings her heart directly, and she knows that somehow she had a hand in all of their misery. At the moment, with his hand in her grasp, she knows that she could carry out her plot right here, right now. She could end this and make it quick.

Instead, she listens.

“That doesn’t stop me from trying,” Captain continues, squeezing her golden fingers. He smiles, “I can’t let it. I won’t let the fear of failure stop me from doing what’s right. In fact, I allow the mistakes I have made to  _ drive me forward _ .”

“How do you do that?” Anna’s voice is quiet but quick. “How do you live with the souls you slaughtered riding on your back like the sky?”

Steve swallows, a sad smile gracing his lips, “One day at a time, Annalise.”

She squeezes his hand back and again wonders what it would be like to allow someone in; to let them see what she sees when her eyes shutter closed at night or the thoughts that haunt her every day. There are decisions she can’t take back, things that she has done that will follow her forever.

Things she must do now that still fill her with terror.

“When I got my powers, it hurt,” Annalise comments, her voice sounding as if she’s aged one thousand years. “But now, whenever I use them, I just feel  _ free. _ ”

Anna’s eyes light up and she forgets about the objective that is supposed to be at the forefront of her mind, she looks out into the night like the constellations are about to swoop her up and take her somewhere exciting. “I can  _ feel  _ the rain in my veins when I call it, the heat under my toes whenever the fire starts – all of it, I love it. For so long I was alone and then my powers allowed me to have something that was mine. No one could take them away from me.”

A silence passes and it seems to Steve that maybe she found a sad star in the distance because her happiness fades and the light in her eyes dims.

“Zola discovered my healing ability,” her tone is as dark as the sky looming above them. “After that I was just a science experiment. I hated him for what he did – cutting me open, filleting me like I was the catch of the day. He laid me out on a table, opened me up, and wrapped me in a metal I didn’t know existed.”

Steve wants to interrupt her, to stop the tumultuous thoughts racing through her head. As he goes to speak, she continues, “I complied because I had to, because of—“ Anna pauses, fighting back tears as she vividly remembers Zola’s leverage for her; the man laid out on the table, tortured within an inch of his life because of her.

_ I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. _

Her tears fall freely, any inhibitions keeping her from opening up gone entirely. Her voice is wavering, wet with emotion as she keeps talking. It seems that since she has started, she can’t stop.

“I hated what he made me do, I hated myself. I never wanted any of this. I wanted to  _ help  _ people – that’s what I  _ thought  _ I was doing, Steve. That’s what I thought they were going to use me to do. I never knew what Hydra was, what they planned, until they made me do what I was created for.”

“And what is that?” he pushes. For some reason he can feel this pulsating headache starting in the root of his cranium, traveling upwards the more and more angry she becomes. It is as if her thoughts are projecting pain onto him.

“To be their puppet,” Annalise’s laugh is disconnected, as if she’s here but not really. She looks at him with hollow eyes, the paleness now representing lifelessness instead of a teasing glint in the moonlight. “I was to do as they said, because otherwise bad things would happen. But bad things happened anyways.”

_ Bad things  _ always  _ happen when you’re around, Annalise. _

“I’m glad you feel this,” Steve admits.

Anna’s face distorts into an expression that shows Steve that she thinks he’s crazy. “Excuse me?”

He chuckles, releasing her hand, “If you didn’t feel remorse, it would mean you might actually  _ be  _ a bad guy. But, you’re  _ sorry _ .” He nods his head to her and smiles in a fatherly way, “You’re  _ feeling  _ what you’ve done, you’re regretting it. That shows me that you’re one of the good guys. You’re one of us.”

_ No, I’m not.  _ She can’t help the thought.  _ I’m really not. _

“And what happens when I do something you  _ good guys  _ don’t like?” she questions him only because she knows it is inevitable. “What am I then?”

_ What am I going to be when I kill you and take Bucky with me, Captain? What will you think then, when your heart can no longer beat in the name of hope? _

“That’s not going to happen,” Steve decides instantly.

Anna, for one odd reason or another, feels  _ hope  _ swell in her chest. She’s not used to the effervescent feeling that’s currently bubbling inside of her. It starts in her heart, spreading to her rib cage. In fact, she really wants to smile. Maybe it’s the innocence in Steve’s eyes, the optimism in his tone, but either way, she feels like this could be a turning point for her.

Then she remembers.

_ Neutralize. Retrieve. _

“None of them will trust me,” Anna is lying, partially. Mostly she is just trying to make the Captain’s pity for her grow, and it seems to be working. It is as if she is her own destruction, popping every last bubble of hope she has inside her body.

_ There is no hope for the damned. _

Steve shakes his head and pats the top of her knee, his headache intensifying, “Prove them wrong. Prove  _ me  _ wrong. You have a past with Buck, I can see that. If he trusted you once, then I’m more than happy to, when you’ve earned it.”

“James?” she laughs desolately in order to try and cover the proliferation of fondness that clouds her mind. “James would be a  _ fool _ to trust me again.”

Like it or not, Annalise does remember the times that James’ hands did more than just throw punches her way, and the times when his eyes were not frightened of her, but perhaps  _ fond _ . She misses those times, but if anyone is a fool, it is her.

Those things cannot happen again.

_ Neutralize. Retrieve. _

Steve’s shoulders shrug and Annalise finds her head magnetized towards him, the misery in her body pulling her down by the gravity of the Earth. Her body angles so she can lean into him. Steve bites his lip and nods, “Bucky has his reasons.”

She sighs and pulls her knees into her chest, the dim glow returning to her body, “I guess.”

It feels good to allow someone to comfort her, even if just for a short moment. There is no way that Steve knows what is going on, what the underlying closeness is a part of. Annalise has to make them feel as if she has let them into her life, into her terrible nightmare that she has to call reality.

And so, she lets Steve think that she is growing fond of him; a trick to disguise the veracity of the situation. She isn’t going to let him in, she’s decided. Not far, anyways. That’s too dangerous. Allowing him to writhe his way into her head and heart could jeopardize the mission.

If there is one thing Hydra has taught her, it is to have no attachments.

Attachments are weakness.

To care is to be weak.


	5. пять

**WAKANDA. ONE WEEK LATER.**

The slamming of a car door drags Cap’s attention away from the television. Even though they are underground, the Wakandans designed the secret base to be able to hear everything that’s going on above in order to be prepared.

“Kitten’s home,” Sam croons from where he’s sat at the table with a beer in his hand. He nods towards the door, “How long you think it’ll be till he comes down here?”

Clint chuckles, “Well when he hears his favorite birdie he might move faster. It is a long flight from New York, maybe he’s hungry.”

Sam narrows his eyes and dumps the empty bottle in the trash, mouthing off about how everyone makes unnecessary comments about his “cool ass bird suit”. Steve smiles, watching as his buddy makes his way towards his room.

“I’m gonna go to bed too,” Clint nods towards Captain. “I guess you’re stuck.”

Steve looks down at his lap where Anna’s head rests, her palms pressed underneath her cheek. Her lips are parted and it seems that sleep can make even the deadliest of assassins look innocent.

“I guess I am,” Steve chuckles. He licks his lips, “Just go on, Barton. She’ll wanna see T’Challa anyways.”

As Clint is walking away, the familiar padding of light footfalls can be heard on the stairs that lead to the lower level. Steve turns his head so he can see T’Challa as he walks in, but he’s confused when he sees Buck out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey pal, I thought you were asleep,” Steve mentions, his arm on the back of the couch.

Bucky shakes his head, “No, I was reading. Still playing catch-up.”

Steve nods, “I understand. T’Challa just got home. You staying up?”

“I was just stopping through to grab something to eat,” Bucky admits, his eyes wandering to Cap’s lap. “You pick up a stray?”

“She was waiting up for T’Challa,” Steve tells his friend, watching as he reaches up to grab a box of cereal from the cabinets. “She fell asleep mid-movie.”

Bucky chews on his lower lip, “You two seem to be getting,” he pauses, tilting his head as if contemplating his next word, “ _ close _ .”

If he listens hard enough, Steve swears he can hear a hint of jealousy in Buck’s voice. He raises an eyebrow, “I guess? She needed company while T’Challa was in New York.”

A swallow bobs Bucky’s throat as he puts the box of cereal back. He pulls the milk from the fridge, “Is that why you missed out on our card game last week too?”

“Oh,” Captain’s mouth opens, realization hitting him. He shakes his head, “I-I forgot, Buck. I’m sorry.”

He nods, his dark hair falling in his face, “It’s okay, pal. I just want to make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into. Hydra isn’t kind to people like her.”

Steve finds the whole conversation really awkward; he isn’t sure why Bucky would even be leading it this way. He doesn’t care for Annalise, not like  _ that,  _ anyways. Biting down on his lower lip and trying his hardest not to move, he breathes, “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, Buck.”

“Being with  _ her _ ,” Bucky nods towards the sleeping figure in Steve’s lap. He scoops a spoon of cereal into his mouth, “It’s probably all a trap. This whole thing, her coming in here, busting everything up. You know what Hydra does, Steve.”

The seriousness in Bucky’s tone is not abnormal, it just seems displaced. “Buck,” Steve sits up a little straighter, Anna’s mouth parting as she slides closer to his hip, “I’m not  _ with  _ her. Not like that.”

“You always did like picking up strays, didn’t you?” Bucky presses on, his voice angry now. “I mean, look around you. There’s me, Wanda, and now Anna.”

Her head stirs at the sound of her name, but her eyelids flutter only mildly before she sighs and turns back towards Steve’s stomach. Steve wants to stand and face his friend, but Bucky is already walking down the hallway towards his room, the conversation dropped.

“I’m sorry about the cards, Bucky,” Steve calls out to him. “I just felt like she needed a friend.”

“Yeah?” he turns and the icy blue eyes that Steve knew from childhood glare him down, “Well, so did I.”

“Steve?”

The blonde turns his attention to the girl slowly stirring, her voice quiet, “What time is it?”

“It’s late o’clock,” Steve jokes, mussing her hair. Anna punches his arm, “You let me fall asleep?”

He shrugs, “You needed it.”

“’Challa home yet?” she questions. Annalise rubs the sleep from her eyes and stretches her limbs just in time for the man of the hour to come down the last steps, “I’m home now, Annalise.”

She smiles, standing up with a pop of her joints to rush over to him. For some reason, Steve wonders, T’Challa has taken to her, and she is the only one allowed to touch him. Anna hugs him from the front and he buries his head into her neck, rubbing her back as they embrace.

It’s nice, honestly. Sometimes Steve can trick himself into believing that they are a little family, all taking care of one another. And then Bucky’s words come creeping back to him:  _ You know what Hydra does. _

Is it true? Steve isn’t sure. He doesn’t want to believe it, wants to think that maybe he is just really bitter about Steve missing out on their weekly card game. He is hopeful that is the only reason behind his acidic tone.

“How is my Annalise?” T’Challa’s voice is very kind when he speaks to Annalise, much different from when he approaches anyone else. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her into his side as he walks to the living area.

She shrugs, “I’m alright. How was meeting Señior Coke Can?”

T’Challa snorts, “He was more agitated than usual.” The king looks over to Cap and makes a head motion towards the conference room. “I delivered the flash drive but he did not gain much from it. I did get to eat a couple of really horrible American meals. I am thankful we do not have McDonald’s in Wakanda.”

Annalise snorts. It’s funny to hear his pronunciation of certain things such as her name. She leans her head into T’Challa’s shoulder, “I’m thankful I only ever used those kinds of places as a stake-out spot.”

It is strange to hear her speak so easily about her past in some ways, but be so bottled up in others. It hurts Steve’s heart that she has to be so guarded. She has to be a liar, almost, in order to get them to believe her. She has to allow small grains of her old life into casual conversation so they won’t be tempted to ask her further questions.

_ Leave before things get too awkward,  _ she reminds herself, feeling nervous in T’Challa’s grip. She hates lying to them, hates being so secretive. She has to, in order to complete this mission. 

“I am tired though,” Annalise admits, rubbing at her eyes again. “I guess the old man was right, I do need some sleep. Sparring in the morning?”

T’Challa nods at her, leaning his cheek into her hair before squeezing her shoulder and letting her go. She hops up on her toes to kiss Cap’s cheek before sauntering towards her room. T’Challa does not waste time in walking towards the conference quarters, Captain close behind him.

“What is going on?” Steve asks as soon as the doors are closed.

The blinds are pushed downwards, audio muted, and T’Challa leans against the table with his arms extended, “Tony knows.”

“Knows what?” Steve questions.

A small hard drive is placed on the table, “A compilation of everything Tony has discovered about Assassin X.”

Steve tilts his head, “That doesn’t explain what has you so shaken up.”

T’Challa’s voice is serious to the point of frightening, “He is ready to come for her, Steve. Ready to  _ kill _ her.”

“He blames himself for so many things, Captain,” T’Challa notes. He runs his hands over his tired face. “He knows of her interaction with the Maximoff twins, and blames her for the boy’s death. Tony knows there is a connection between Assassin X and the Winter Soldier. I am under the impression that he believes if he finds one, he will find both.”

There is a glimmer of fear in Steve’s eyes, “You don’t think he suspects us being here, do you?”

T’Challa shrugs, his head shaking slightly. He sighs, scratching the back of his neck, “I do not believe so. I told him that I had no lead as to where she was going, but that our government was to track for her.”

“It feels like the airport all over again,” Steve admits in a low voice. He rubs his fingers over the creasing in his brow. “I don’t want to go to war with Tony. I never did.”

“I believe that, Captain,” T’Challa reassures the man across the room from him. “We must keep them safe, and discover what Hydra was doing in that underground base.”

Steve shakes his head, “That would require Annalise to do some talking, which I don’t think she’s up for.”

“It will take time,” T’Challa admits. He swirls his fingers atop the wooden table in the middle of the room where his father once stood, a delegate and king for Wakanda – a  _ protector _ . He wonders if he could be the same.

He snaps himself out of his reminiscence and looks upwards to Cap’s eyes, “I have another member flying over in a week. A doctor, you might remember.”

“Banner,” Steve answers. He nods when he sees the look in T’Challa’s eyes, “Yeah, I knew him. Why are we bringing him here?”

“Mr. Lang was extraordinary with the designs for Barnes’ new cybernetic arm, but I do not know that he can get to the root of what is going on with Annalise.” T’Challa walks his way to the door. “I do not want to alienate her, but I believe it is what is best so we can understand her better. Professor Zola never cared for what changes were happening in her body, he merely wanted to help the changes occur. I want to make sure she is safe in the confines of her body.”

“I don’t think she’s going to see it that way,” Steve admits as he rests his weight on the table to look over at T’Challa. “She’s going to see it the same as what Hydra did to her.”

A shrug pulls at T’Challa’s shoulders, “We will go easy, I swear. I would never want to bring any harm to her.”

Steve sighs, resting his chin in his hand, “Break it to her easy, T’Challa. She’s not going to like this.”

“Believe me, Captain,” the Wakandan king’s eyes are in fact sorrowful, “Neither will I.”

**NEW YORK.**

Tony pours over the report files on his computer screen, praying he doesn’t miss a detail. He doesn’t want FRIDAY’s help on this one, he wants to figure things out on his own, by his own intellect. He will never have anyone question that again.

“You’ve looked over those one thousand times and counting, Tony,” Natasha’s voice rings from the hallway. “And you skipped dinner. What’s eating you?”

He sighs and zooms in on a mission report, his eyes never leaving his screens, “Nothing, Romanoff, just busy. You and your pizza wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

“We can’t stay cooped up in here. It isn’t healthy.”

“Neither is your pizza.”

She shrugs, “Touché.”

“I thought you were Russian?” Tony prods, looking up at her over his glasses. Natasha licks her lips, “I  _ was _ . But I dated this really cute French one time.”

“One time changes everything.” His sarcastic tone rings a truth, but she chooses to ignore it. Instead she steps into the room, closing the door behind her. Natasha is close to his desk, her eyes looking at him through the translucent screens.

Her hands press to the edge of the wood, “You’re not going to find him through her, Tony.”

“I don’t want to find him,” Tony argues. He zooms everything out and closes it down, staring Natasha in her face, “I want to know what Zola had to do with this; what Hydra did to her. I want to know who she’s working for, and why. She did bad things,  _ killed  _ people, and now she’s on the loose. You can’t say you aren’t the least bit suspicious as to her existence.”

“I tend not to weep over the fallen,” Natasha quips with her eyes studying his, “but I understand where you’re coming from. I’m just trying to make sure your intentions are pure.”

“They never are,” his smirk is wild, haunted with days of no rest. The purple bags under his eyes age him, the ever-present crease in his forehead making him look even more troubled than he already is. “Pierce even had a little something to do with her, Nat. I want to get why she was frozen, why she was taken out. What did she do? She couldn’t just be a recruiter, she’s too talented for that.”

He shakes his head, throwing up some more screens, the image of her sullen face from the mission report video he found haunting the walls, “No, no, she’s far too talented. I managed to read through a report of a fight between her and the Winter Soldier. Apparently Barnes hit her directly in the head and it didn’t leave a dent. Why?”

“Women are strange creatures,” Natasha knocks her hip into the side of the desk as she peruses the files alongside Tony.

Tony’s hands fly in the air before he wrangles himself in, crossing his arms over his chest, “This was very early on, when they were first recruiting for Hydra super soldiers. She didn’t take the serum, she didn’t need to. So why is she so enhanced? What happened?”

“What all did T’Challa pull from the site?” questions Natasha. She leans her arm against the desk and watches Tony’s hands touch imaginary screens hovering in midair. “Just these reports and that one video?”

“Yeah, that’s what’s crazy,” his voice gets quicker with every sentence he speaks. “She’s virtually untraceable. She leaves no mark, unless Hydra makes one. She hardly ever gives a mission report, but most of her involvement is with Barnes. Why? They don’t go together on missions, but whenever he is mentioned, whenever the cryo chamber is mentioned, she is there.  _ Assassin X. _ ”

Tony pulls up a report and zooms in on it, specifically a certain paragraph. He reads it aloud:

“Too many memories today. More difficult session this time around, seems to be less compliant now. Memories are returning quicker, must keep in cryo at all costs. Too much consideration for rebellion. Assassin X was less than willing to comply.”

“Comply with  _ what _ , exactly?” Tony questions, his tone exuding nothing but curiosity. He continues to babble until Natasha stops him with a loud cough.

“Tony,” her tone is warning, her hand rested on his bicep, “you sound like a madman. It’s one in the morning, you need sleep.”

He shakes his head, refusing, “No, Natasha. I’m getting close. I have to figure this out. I-I have to  _ know _ .”

She stops him, holding his face between her hands, “No, Tony. You have to sleep. You won’t think clearly until you do. Let’s go, c’mon.”

Natasha closes down the screens and walks Tony towards the door, no longer touching him. She tells FRIDAY to lock up the lab for the safety of Mr. Stark and the AI agrees wholeheartedly. Like it or not, Tony created a program that included his well-being as a consideration.

“No overrides allowed until eight in the morning, FRIDAY,” Natasha adds, eyeing Tony from her spot behind him.

“Yes Miss Romanoff.”

“Damn you,” Tony mumbles, his hands held in front of him as if they were cuffed. He walks down the hallway, mumbling under his breath. Natasha follows, sauntering almost with satisfaction. Even so, her heart stumbles in wonder that maybe he might be on to something.

**WAKANDA.**

“She doesn’t… _ exist _ ,” Scott Lang muses to Steve over coffee one morning. Steve nods, biting on his lower lip, “I don’t ever see her come out of her room unless T’Challa is around.”

Scott shrugs, taking a sip, “I guess she’s just not used to being around people.”

“Maybe,” Steve deliberates. “I still hate to think that she’s stuffed away in there, self-isolating and all that.”

“Just imagine,” Scott begins, his cup on the table now, “if you never had anybody. You’d been taken from everyone, turned into a psycho-killing machine, and then they made you actually kill people. I’m guessing she doesn’t trust people too easily.”

Steve chuckles, eyes glancing down at the dark liquid in his cup. He nods, “I kind of know what that’s like.”

“O-Oh,” Scott’s voice comes out in a stutter as he looks over. “I-I’m sorry Cap, I didn’t know.”

The blonde shakes his head, finding the whole situation comical. “No, no, Lang, it’s fine. My situation isn’t hardly as negative as hers. I at least had people along the way, you know? I don’t think Annalise ever did.” He sighs and swishes the small amount of coffee left in his cup, “I just think it’s ironic how many people here can share in her grief – me, Wanda, Clint – and yet she thinks herself to be alone in her suffering.”

“I think sometimes we prefer to be alone in our destruction.” Scott is reminded of the days when he thought he was no longer going to see his little girl Cassie. He recalls how alone he felt then, even when he shared prison cells with people who had lost so much more than he had.

“Self-destruction?” A new voice joins them. Bucky chuckles lowly as he walks into the kitchen, hair wet and hanging loosely at his shoulders. “I know we’re all a little upset we can’t just walk the streets, but let’s not get hasty.”

Steve rolls his eyes and kicks out his foot to his friend’s shin, “You’re such a jerk, butting into people’s serious conversations like that.”

Ever since Annalise arrived, Bucky has been different. It’s obvious. He doesn’t walk with the same heavy, comfortable footfalls he did for the months when he was finally getting used to being in Wakanda. He is in the training room more often and he watches less television and reads more books.

Steve can tell that sometimes his jovial moods are forced to continue his façade that he’s okay, but it is clear that Annalise’s presence puts Bucky on edge. Steve just isn’t sure in what way.

“Well you’re a punk, being all depressing and whatnot,” Bucky muses as he rifles through the cabinets for breakfast food. “Did you make a pot or a cup?”

“Lang is drinking, so a pot,” Steve huffs sarcastically. He points to the counter, “I already had you a cup set out, Buck. All you gotta do is pour in the coffee.”

“Well shit,” Bucky taps his forehead, rolling his eyes. “The trained assassin unable to spot an extra coffee cup on the counter. It could’ve been Wanda’s.”

Steve sighs, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back in the chair, “You know Wanda doesn’t drink coffee.” Bucky shrugs as he fixes his cup, unresponsive. He turns and smiles, tilting the dark coffee cup up to his lips.

It takes all Steve can muster to recognize that this isn’t just a dream, and that Bucky isn’t going to slip away whenever he opens his eyes. For so long all he could see was his friend falling from that freight car, flailing as he yelled out Steve’s name.

Bucky relocates to the couch with his coffee and his book, leaning into the side panel as he gets comfortable. Steve looks over his shoulder, “What’re you reading?”

“The Hunger Games,” Bucky rattles the title off. “T’Challa found it in the library upstairs, told me it was a good read. So, here I am… _ reading _ .”

Straightening out his spine, Steve’s eyes roll around in his skull at Bucky’s humor. It’s nice to have a certain side of Bucky reveal itself – at least for a little while. Sometimes it fades in and out, more of the Soldier appearing at times and others it is all James Buchanan Barnes radiating in the room.

About one hundred yards away, Annalise is humming to the tune of “ _ I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm _ ” with her fists plunging deep into a punching bag. The vibranium wrapped around her knuckles helps with the force of the hit but her rage is what pushes her forward.

Sweat drips down her temples and neck, her t-shirt two different colors in some places thanks to perspiration. Still she continues, a hum vibrating her throat, her fists and knees sinking into the bag.

Images flash through her mind, hatred curling in her hands as she imagines Zola’s head in front of her, plastered onto the bag. She conjures an image of Alexander Pierce crumbling on the floor beneath her, begging for mercy.

“I hate you,” she grits out between her teeth as she feels her knuckles tear open just to heal, “I  _ hate  _ you.”

Annalise repeats it like a mantra: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

She thinks that saying it will make their presence go away – her demons. But they are like a tumor, growing with every memory she recalls. The mass presses against her brain, growing as it entraps her entire body in a weight that she can’t shake. She can’t erase it. She can’t rip it out.

First it is the hands of Arnim Zola, getting too close to her body as he holds the knife covered in her blood. Then it is the scientists with their blue serum, loading it up into syringes to plunge it into tanned skin, deep screams following soon after. After it is the Maximoff twins, sheltered in cages like animals, Annalise forced to watch.

With every punch, she can’t help but visualize Pierce’s bloodied face on the bag. Maybe it’s his body she’s beating black and blue, hatred for him blooming like the crimson on her hands.

Finally, it is  _ him _ . It’s his long hair hanging, dripping red. It’s his dark lips that cover teeth that want so badly to pull into a smile, but a frown is all he knows anymore. It’s his muscles bulging against the machinery holding him down.

It’s his  _ eyes _ . His beautiful, clear eyes that Annalise swears she could get lost in if circumstances were different. It’s the pleading tumbling from his lips in cries that she can’t erase, it’s the tears that flow from his eyelids freely. It’s the realization when she puts her hands on either side of his head.

It’s her.

Eventually she’s screaming out the words as she launches her arms at the bag, sending it flying across the room. The seam breaks and all of the sand falls out when it flattens against the wall. Anna’s breathing is heavy, inhales and exhales stretching her chest. Unbeknownst to her, Annalise has been crying; she realizes when she blinks hard one time, resting her head on the wall as tear droplets race down her cheeks.

“You’re so stupid,” she mumbles, dragging the mess away from the center of the mat. “Thinking that they’ll just believe you, that they’ll just accept you. Thinking that you can be  _ one of them _ , as if nothing ever happened. You’re here for a reason, you idiot. Stop this.”

Annalise strings up another punching bag and looks at the bruises on her knuckles that slowly fade away, but the fire under her feet doesn’t dim. Her humming returns, but this time lyrics fall from her lips, “My hearts on fire, the flame grows higher, so I will weather the storm…”

Slamming her knee into the bag, Anna feels the familiar burning of plastic on skin as a scrape forms but heals within milliseconds. Her healing allows her to continually punch and kick at the bag, ignoring the pain and just enduring. As the lyrics repeat in her head she continues hitting, anger needed to be taken out somewhere.

“What do I care if icicles form,” her feet are growing warmer beneath her and a furious sweat breaks out on her forehead. The heat explodes against her toes and the flames start traveling up her legs. The enticing fire that never seems to fully dim; it’s always there, begging her to just let it roam free. There’s a heat in her throat that tells her to open her mouth and allow the flames to swallow everything around her, to let her be reborn from the ashes so she can start anew. “I’ve got my love to keep me warm.”

Without even realizing it, Annalise’s fingers catch fire and as she repeatedly lands blows against the punching bag it starts disintegrating under her heavy hand. The plastic burns and falls to ash on the floor, sand spilling from the openings.

The faces start to flash through her head: her parents, Arnim Zola, Alexander Pierce, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Strucker, Zemo, Steve Rogers, James Barnes…

“I hate you!” Anna’s voice is a deep cry out, the weight of the lost settling in her stomach as she remembers everything.

A sudden flash of heat encompasses the room but it is welcomed by the brunette facing her demons head on. Her arm slings towards the bag, entirely lit up in flames, and she rips directly through it. The lower half of the punching bag, what’s left of the burnt plastic and sand, is flung to the other side of the room with the force of her hit.

Annalise sighs, reaching up to grab the metal loop that holds the punching bag in place and unhooks it. She takes the shell of whatever is left down, but can’t seem to stand back up to her feet anymore and instead crumbles to the floor.

The sand bites into her kneecaps but she knows it won’t do any damage as soon as she stands up to brush it off, but something in her has given up and she stays down. Anna can’t stop the images going through her head and so she closes her eyes and welcomes them, welcomes her grief and pain and hatred.

She sees her parents leaving on a plane.

She sees Arnim Zola in the airport.

She sees her colleagues dead bodies on the floor, hers standing tall in the midst of the bloodied storm.

She sees Steve Rogers crash a plane into the ice.

She sees James Buchanan Barnes’ head beneath her hands and his frightened blue eyes staring up at her as his dark, full lips beg her not to do what she’s always done.

She sees the dark eyes boring into her soul as he repeats the words:  _ Neutralize. Retrieve. _

Annalise doesn’t even realize her hands had made their way into her hair until another set of fingers are wrapping around her wrists.

“Anna,” his smooth voice is distant, as if he’s on another planet. She wishes he’d go away. “Anna, c’mon.”

She can’t react, can’t make herself do anything. There’s nothing she wants more than to dent her skull to the point of no return so she will no longer have to do it to anyone else. Maybe she can escape the disgusting legacy of pain she’s left behind if she’s no longer here to continue it.

He calls to her again, his speech dripping with concern, “Anna, come on. Get out of there.”

It’s dull, the voice. It’s as if someone has put all of these clouds between her and him and she can’t wade through them. Or maybe she doesn’t want to. Something is sucking her heels under the muddled parts of her mind and she wonders for a second if maybe it’s her own subconscious.

“Annalise Finley,” his voice is sharp, the grip around her wrists tightening to the point of pain. “Come back to me.”

Her eyes snap open and gray is met with blue, dark lashes framing those beautiful irises she knows all too well. With her jaw trembling and tears falling freely from her pale eyes, it takes all she has not to crumble into his familiar set of arms.

“No,” her voice shakes, chest heaving in short breaths. Anna’s hands thread deeper into her hair but she can’t seem to close her eyes again, as if he’s anchoring her to this moment.

“Please, James,” she murmurs as her hands begin to shake violently, that one word repeating over and over in her head, haunting her.

_ Retrieve. Retrieve. Retrieve. _

His forehead touches hers and she’s thrown back to so many years ago when a similar sensation brought about intense pain and agony.

_ “No, Anna, please,” his pleads tumble from begging, bloodied lips, sweat trailing from his hairline down to his neck. “Don’t do this, please. Please!” _

_ Her jawline is set steady, hands fighting the urge to jitter as she steps towards him. The table snaps down into place, jolting his head as his body lays prostrate and he’s restrained, wrists rubbing red and raw from struggle. _

_ “Soldier,” her voice is slow, the same as it is every time. “Everything is going to be okay. Just calm down.” _

_ She holds her hands up and James can see the slight tremor running down her veins, the pale glow that illuminates her body. A sour taste returns to his mouth and he can’t help but brace himself for what’s about to happen. Knowing doesn’t make it any easier, any less traumatizing. _

_ The same holds for Annalise, the absolute hatred that flows through her blood whenever she steps closer to him, looming over like the dark cloud she has become to him. _

_ “Everything is going to be okay,” she whispers, her voice close. _

_ James sees a tear trek out of her eyelid and down her cheek. He closes his eyes as it splashes onto his nose. She swallows and he’s stopped struggling by now, accepting the inevitable. _

_ “You know it isn’t.” The tears in his eyes from all of the pain creep out of the corners of his lids, mixing with perspiration. “Stop bullshitting me, Annie. Just do it.” _

Annalise cries out and her head drops to his shoulder, sobs shaking her body as guilt overrides her like a sickness she can’t shake. Her hands fist his sweatshirt, trembling fingers needing something to hold onto. His arms, one metal and one flesh, drag around to the backs of her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she manages to blur words into her shuddering cries, apologies for things not yet done still managing to slip. “I’m so sorry, James.”

Bucky’s cheek presses into the side of her head, one hand cupping the back of her neck as he stays quiet. He licks his lips and closes his eyes, focusing on trying to keep his own breathing steady as he listens to hers which is so erratic.

Anna’s apologies continue to tumble from blistered lips, words that she feels are hollow becoming superfluous. It doesn’t matter what she apologizes for now, as she remembers what Steve told her on the roof that night. It matters what decisions she makes from here on out.

Trembling muscles fall slack into his hold, her arms aching from the intensity of her workout. Anna’s cheeks rouge red with every tear drop that finds its way down the familiar track of her cheeks, dripping from her jawline onto Bucky’s dark sweatshirt.

Bucky finds himself rocking his body gently back and forth, his hands trekking over her back, drawing shapes he is pretty sure aren’t real. He feels her hands against his shirt, her forehead biting against his collarbone.

After she has calmed, her head light with emotion as her heart is heavy with hatred, Bucky brushes her hair back from her face. His voice is gentle, “I didn’t take you for a Billie Holiday kind of gal, Annie.”

A smile breaks through on her face and she sniffles, wiping her nose. “Glad I could keep you on your toes.”

“I  _ mean _ ,” he clarifies, emphasizing the word. He looks her dead in the eyes and reaches up to hold her face in place by her chin so she can’t look away, “I never took you for a Billie Holiday kind of gal  _ then _ . I already knew this time. Your tune is still a bit off, though.”

Anna narrows her eyes as she tries to decipher what he’s saying. She swallows thickly, remembering the time when she acquired the vinyl record,  _ Stormy Blues. _

“I-I bought that in…” she trails off, her voice nearly above a whisper.

“Bucharest.”

She can’t help the grin that tugs up the corner of her lips and a fresh set of tears fall down her face, memories of happiness blacking out those of anger and pain. Bucky’s facial expression mirrors her own, crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

His hands rest on either side of her face and she forgets all about the word “retrieve” and instead focuses on what he says next. Bucky’s eyes bore into hers, thumbs touching her cheekbones tenderly.

“I remember,” he whispers to her, twirling a lock of hair that’s gone astray from her ponytail. He looks at it and then back to her, kindness laced in his sapphire irises. “Not a lot,” he clarifies with a slight nod of his head, never breaking eye contact. “But some.”

Anna’s heart begs her to let it soar because there’s a shred of hope that maybe Bucky remembers the very  _ good  _ things that came from Bucharest.

Then she remembers that she was the one to take those things from him.

Her heart stops beating in her chest for a moment and she loses her breath. Bucky’s hands squeeze her cheeks gently to break her out of it, “Anna, come on.”

_ Come back to me. _

A different voice:  _ Retrieve the Winter Soldier. _

Anna’s head hurts and she wants to rip her hair out. Her lips quiver as his face comes back to her memory, his mission for her at the forefront of her mind.

“Anna,” Bucky’s mouth is against her ear, his hands pressuring her cheeks. “Annie, I’m right here. They can’t get you.”

“They don’t have to,” her voice is quiet, but he hears. Anna shakes her head, bumping her temple against his chin. Suddenly the room is too small and there’s not enough oxygen, her lungs beginning to collapse. Her fists tighten around his shirt and she’s close to ripping the fabric up.

“I won’t let them,” Bucky is insistent. He knocks his forehead against hers to snap her from her thoughts. “But you have to let  _ me _ .”

As he brushes his thumbs along the undersides of her eyes to catch the residue of tears, she looks up at him, nodding. He smiles fondly down at her, grabbing her up and holding her closer to him, his mouth on her hairline.

Bucky reaches up between their bodies and grabs her hands, bringing them down into his own. A smile pulls his mouth upwards at the corners, “I always thought this was so cool.”

Anna gazes at him, watching his irises take in what’s before him, and she wonders if maybe things can return to how they were before the world as they knew it crumbled. She swallows thickly, “Well, it doesn’t necessarily beat the whole  _ metal arm  _ bit, does it?”

“Oh, this is  _ way _ cooler,” he quips, his eyes interlocking with hers.

She smiles with one half of her mouth, not having the energy to drag up both sides. A deep breath pulls on her chest, “I always thought the arm was cool.”

Bucky shakes his head, a short spurt of laughter coming from his chest, “You  _ glow _ , Anna. That’s pretty damn cool.”

Annalise rolls her eyes and shoves at his chest, the glow in her hands warming at his words. She can’t help the blush that taints her cheeks but she hopes that he’ll just pass it off from the exertion from before.

It’s a time like this, here with James, that she can forget all the bad she’s done, all the evil she’s  _ going  _ to carry out. She can feel like she’s normal, even though right now her hands are glowing and he has a metal arm.

“Anyways,” he squeezes her palms once more and then releases her. “You need to eat. You just burnt a lot of… _ calories _ .”

Annalise can’t contain the giggle in her chest. While her eyes squeeze shut in laughter she doesn’t see the admiration in Bucky’s eyes as he watches a genuine  _ smile  _ paint itself on her lips. It is a rare, beautiful sight, and he’s not going to miss it.


End file.
